Posts by Ian Michael Gumby

Re: Amazing how stupid governments are

"I guess my real question is: how could such geniuses have ever lost control of those cables in the first place?"

Simple, Assange found a patsy in Manning who had enough security clearance to be able to break in.

Re: erm

First they didn't let Assange walk out of the country. His lawyer attempted to dodge contact w the prosecutor's office as Assange left. Once Assange obtained counsel, all communication goes through counsel. Note that his counsel faced an investigation over his actions after he admitted in British court that he received text messages and that he misrepresented the facts that the Prosector had been trying to contact him to bring Assange in.

Since you admittedly don't know the facts, Ny under oath told the British courts that the purpose of the EAW is so that the can charge him.

So your idea of just coming to the UK to investigate is not well thought out.

You also don't seem to know your law either...

You have a right to express an opinion, however it would be a reasonable assumption that you also take the time to get the facts before forming an opinion...

Re: "If things go on too long, a climb-down will look even sillier."

You wrote:

Assange's lawyer is working overtime to discredit the accusations of the two victims and the press outside of Sweden is ignoring it. When he's successful he goes back to court where they quash the extradition order. Because England's case was based on an invalid extradition order, his bail skip and bail forfeit are now reopened by the English lawyers.

-=-

I guess you don't know much about the law.

Let me spell it out to you...

1) The appeals made by Assange failed an the EAW was judged valid.

2) As far as the UK is concerned the facts as presented by the Swedish prosecutor are taken at face value to be true.

3) As far as the UK court is concerned, assuming the facts as true, do they support the charges made in the EAW? And in the appeals hearing, it was judged that they did.

4) The EAW, now judged to be valid means that Assange can go back to Sweden to face his accusers. There, the Swedish Prosecutor will have to make her case.

There is no reopening anything in the UK. Assange lost the appeals and then ran away to hide.

The whole US thing is a smoke screen. The US has years to charge him as they continue to investigate the theft.

Assuming that Assange goes to Sweden, is found guilty, does jail time, the US could charge him and make an extradition request. Even if the Swedes don't extradite him, the US will eventually get him. After all, he will leave Sweden and head back to Australia...

@GM. Re: @Matthew 25 @Graham Marsden - @Ian Michael Gumby - @Graham Marsden Oh for fecks sake

And my point is that Assange is accused of rape, fled jurisdiction, appealed the EAW, lost and then jumped bail.

FFS, how many times does it take for the simple point is that under Swedish law, they have to follow procedure and question him before they charge him, so he has to go back to Sweden so that they can charge him w rape.

When you say 'determined that is was rape', you ar talking about haviing a trial,

Or do you mean that Ny who is the prosecutor doesn't think that there is enough evidence to charge him w rape yet perjured herself in British courts? Really?

@Cap'n Re: @Graham Marsden Oh for fecks sake

To answer your question...

Because under the existing EU treaties, they already assure that in order to honor a third country's extradition request both countries (GB and Sweden) would have to agree. This would afford Assange two countries legal systems and appeals processes. Not to mention the EU as a third set of courts. This would mean years of freedom while he potentially abuses 3 legal systems in the process.

So he already has that protection.

But he isn't asking for that. He is asking to not be extradited to the US period, when there are no charges being brought by the US. He is essentially asking for a blanket immunity from any potential prosecution that could be raised in the future.

This has been discussed in depth, yet Assnut's supporters seem to ignore this and still think this whole thing is just about questioning him. He is going to be charged.

Re: I rather hope he gets extradited

Funny, but I seriously doubt first that the US would request his extradition from Sweden because they are painfully aware of the situation.

Second even if asked, I seriously doubt that Sweden would honor that request if presented.

So Assange gets the full term of 6 years for being a prat. (Ok, even there I doubt that would happen and that assumes he is actually found guilty of anything.) [This is an important point. He could go to trial and not be found guilty, however his running and jumping bail doesn't really support this outcome...]

So then he's put on a plane back to Australia, where he could face some other potential legal issues. There was talk of the Australian Government taking away his passport. But then he'd be free to talk to the Ecuadorian government about getting a new one...

But the point is that no matter how this plays out, you can bet that it will be done by the book. And you can bet that there will definitely be people protesting its outcome.

@john Woods. Re: Obligation to arrest.

Reasonable? No, not really when you consider the facts of the case.

First Assange should have been deemed a flight risk and upon losing the third appeal, he should have immediately been remanded in to custody. Note that he fled jurisdiction which caused the need for an EAW in the first place, so it is reasonable to assume that he would do it again.

Also the UK courts afforded Assange bail. Because he was a flight risk, Assange could have been denied bail and we wouldn't have had this problem in the first place.

So you have to ask yourself what sort of obligations does the country of GB have when it comes to having a person jump bail within their own country?

Here's the really sad thing. Instead of being a man, he screwed himself into a worse position.

Jumping bail in the UK means he can be barred from entry in to the UK in the future.

He can be barred entry in to most of the EU because of his actions in both GB and Sweden.

(other countries too for that matter.)

Assange even screwed the pooch back home in Aussie. There were earlier news reports on this... Countries will protect their citizens to a point....

"And why wasn't Murdoch hauled over the coals like this?"

Because he didn't flee jurisdiction in the first place?

Because he didn't spend years in an appeals process fighting an EAW to go back and face hs charges in the first place?

Because when the Britsh courts ruled against him in courts, he didn't run away and create an international incident?

Sorry old chap, unlike Murdoch, A$$nuts made his own situation worse.

@Graham Marsden Re: @Ian Michael Gumby - @Graham Marsden Oh for fecks sake

It seems that you don't understand the situation.

With respect to the EAW, Assange had his day in court. That were there an issue of Political Asylum, it would have been addressed by the courts in Britain. The fact is that his attorneys raised this issue in their third attempt to appeal the EAW. Are you now saying that Ecuador is actually a better judge of what constitutes a need for political asylum? That's exactly what you and everyone else who supports Assange and Ecuador is saying.

GB, Sweden are not capable of respecting the rights of an individual and face persecution.

Clearly that is not the case. Assange was afforded his rights within GB and appealed the EAW.

Assange lost all 3 appeals.

FFS, you live in a country where you don't understand the simple laws of the country. You're making the public schools in the US look better and better every day.

@Thorne Re: There is absolutely no need to storm the embassy..

One small hitch...

Julian isn't a dolt and wouldn't publish them even if they were true.

He knows which side his bread is buttered on...

Nice idea though.

Yo! Sparty... not quite... Re: Obligation to arrest.

I think you're missing a very important legal point.

In the UK, legally there are two issues. 1) The EAW warrant and 2) Jumping Bail and creating an international incident while on Britain's watch.

First the legal issue is that Sweden issued an EAW and Britain was obligated to honor it. So they did by arresting Assange. They they afforded Assange his day in court by allowing him to appeal the EAW. This is a very important point. Assange was never denied his rights in the UK.

Then there is now the legal issue of Assange jumping bail and hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy.

The ramifications of Assange being allowed to jump bail and flee Britain is a very big deal since it would mean that they didn't honor their obligations under the EAW.

Much more important that you portray and no, the actual charges of the EAW are no longer relevant once the EAW was judged to be valid.

And yes, its that simple.

@ GAP ... Re: Once again a government fails it's people.

"Unlike the US, we (Aussies) abandon our citizens when it's not convenient for the government cause."

I really hate to break it to you but the Aussie government has its hands tied at the moment.

First Assange didn't ask them for any assistance while he was in the UK fighting the EAW.

Second since Assange hasn't gone back to Sweden to face his accusers, or be officially charged with a crime, he has yet had the opportunity to contact the embassy to ask for their assistance.

So no, you can't blame your government.

BTW, I predict that in the future when this all blows over, Assange will attempt to get on the Brit show "Celebrity Big Brother", only to be the first one in the house to be evicted for being a prat.

@Graham Marsden Re: Oh for fecks sake

"That's some nice rape apology you've got going on there."

That's some nice pre-judgement you've got going on there...

-=-

FFS, Really?

Are you now denying that Assange hadn't had his day in court where he was allowed to appeal the EAW?

Clearly he isn't going to be tried in Britain for an alleged crime he committed in Sweden, right?

Are you saying that he should have to face his accusers?

@nuked ... Re: Can we PLEASE...

"Not that I agree that this action is at all wise, or justified, but this is very different from 'storming' an embassy, which implies some sort of SAS-type invasion of foreign soil. Indeed, whilst politically suicidal, the reality is that the rather less interesting iteration actually on the table would not trigger some mass slaughter of British diplomats around the globe; I would hope."

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but there wouldn't be much if any backlash.

Sure, there will be the 3 or 4 countries who are joined at the hip with Ecuador in their ideological views on world politics, however the bulk of the world could care less. In truth, Ecuador is the one who is in the wrong here. Assange is not being persecuted and is facing a criminal charge of rape in a third country. Ecuador should not have given him asylum in the first place.

When the dust settles, Ecuador and others will then resume diplomatic relations. In terms of damage to the UK, none more than those caused by the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

Re: British government willing to see sense

"But unfortunately is completely unable to think clearly with Yank Cock stuck so far up its arse."

Wow. WTF?

FFS, the 'Yanks' haven't made any requests to the Brits about Assange. Period. There is no foundation to support your homo-erotic wet dream of how foreign policies work.

Clearly the subtleties of International Law are lost on the bulk of the posters. Try and be reasonable.

Assage had his day in court. Under the EAW and International Law, he was afforded the right to appeal his extradition. Not once, but 3 times. He could also have gone to the EU and appeal the EAW as a final straw.

So to day he didn't have his day in a UK court is unfair and just plain wrong.

You may not agree with the court's ruling, but the judge did rule based on the evidence presented. Of course based on a lot of the comments here, many ignored the facts of the case when they made their posts and probably hadn't seen any of the court documents which are actually available online. (Go and Google for them.)

Rather than face up to the facts, Assange jumped bail and ran and hid in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Here Assange, beyond the EAW, had committed a crime in Britain by jumping bail. Because of what Assange did, Britain's hands were tied. The UK has no choice but to do anything and everything within their powers to bring Assange in and put him on a plane to Sweden.

The US has nothing to do with this. As it has been said Ad Nauseum, the US has other and better options if and when they so choose to act.

Assange tied Britain's hands. So if anything blame him.

As to storming the embassy that's on one extreme.

While many have the idea in the head that it would be like a scene from Star Wars where the storm troopers charge the building, that wouldn't happen.

The British Government merely has to expel the diplomats and notify Ecuador to clear out the embassy and that they don't want diplomatic ties with them. Under international law, Ecuador would have to leave the embassy and the embassy is no longer a safe haven for Assange.

At that time, the British police would search everything leaving the embassy and would then would arrest Assange. Or Ecuador would realize that they played their hand and turn him over.

If anything, your analogy should be that its Assange who wants to fsck over Britain and they aren't standing for it.

@Trisha DRe: I missed that fine point on the thread.

You're right, its not exactly a free lunch.

I'm probably like most people where I instinctively ignore the adverts and forget that they exist.

But the point I am making still stands.

Where else are you going to get any mail service for "free" (meaning you don't get charged any money) that doesn't snoop?

The data they get from snooping on you probably makes them more money that they get from the adverts.

Re: I missed that fine point on the thread.

Go where exactly?

You want something for free when there is no free lunch.

Not a cult... Re: Apple

There really is nothing new here. Seriously.

Selling is a profession, regardless of what you sell. So understanding what makes the potential buyer tick, is important. I'm not talking about the fast talking idiot of a car sales rep who think's his shit doesn't stink, but the professional who works for an Apple, IBM, Oracle, <insert your favorite Tech company here.>

IBM does a week long course teaching Solution Selling Methodology. It was actually one of the few training courses I was allowed to take and it was one of the best courses out there.

Looking for non verbal signals is crucial in understanding how your customer perceives you.

The concept is everyone is a sales rep isnt new. While at IBM, I tried to ingrain that message in to our consultants every time I have them on a project. Not so much to get them to sell something, but that its part of their job to always be professional and to put on the best face. Also if they uncover a latent opportunity, they should alert me so I could handle the sale.

If you think Apple is bad now... you should really look at IBM during the 60's.

@Steve Knox...Re: Blimey

I don't know of any way to answer that.

You're entitled to your opinion. I know what I know and those who I know probably don't represent the entire 'intelligence community'.

Lets just say that even in a highly politically charged environment, when your role isn't a political one, you are still aware of the politics around you. However, your role exists through multiple administrations so you learn to keep your opinion to yourself.

You also learn that drawing attention to yourself isn't really a good trait either.

Yo! Sparty... Re: Makes....

You're wrong.

Assange isn't presumed guilty because Assange hasn't been charged... We were talking about potential charges against Wikileaks, right?

With respect to Sweden the innocence until proven guilty occurs at trial. Again even here he fled jurisdiction before he was going to be charged.

Jumping bail? Sorry but even a blind man can see that he is guilty of that! ;-)

I don't want to talk about the rest of your post... But clearly you don't understand the value of the data from a big data perspective...

Re: Blimey

"How stupid is that of spooks, to tolerate politicians who pretend to speak for them and who are stupid enough to think that they can reign with increasingly taxing new rules over the people rather than servering provision for them. "

You really know nothing of the military or the intelligence community.

Being apolitical means that you can't afford to have an opinion.

Re: Makes....

Please keep in mind that it was protected from the outside world. Assange and anonymous could not have made the breach that Manning had allegedly done.

He was the inside man who had enough access to break in from behind the outer layer of security.

Note the details presented during the Article 32 hearing. Manning had alleged conversations w Assange asking for help to break in.

If true, Manning didn't have access directly to those documents. This is a kind of important fact that will come to bite Assange in the ass.

Again it's not he publication that scares Assange, it's how he got the documents and his alleged involvement prior and during the actual theft that worries him...

@Psyx Re: @Patient one ... see you proved my point ..

Well I see that the UK have banned Snoop Dog and his posse. That's a good first start.

Tell you what. We'll take out Vanilla Ice, if you stop Sasha Baron Cohen from doing his Ali G Character from now on. Also we'll see what we can do about Jamie Kennedy.

See how easy it is to solve a problem once you start to work together?

The more you know...

@Patient one ... see you proved my point .. Re: @AC I always thought the values

First there were the Puritans. (White Trash from Britain who had some strange religious beliefs and were intolerant of others.)

Then you sent your criminals to Australia.

Fast forward to today.. and you dump your has been stars here.

Sorry no, we're not going to take it. You have to take them back.

We already have our quota filled with mindless goobs who make money by being fake reality TV 'stars' .

We would send them to Cuba, however that would be grounds for starting WW III.

There are international laws about dumping toxic trash, and while the US won't enforce them by letting you our great ally, we will not risk war with Cuba.

So please take them back or at least send them to Canada?

@ribosome Re: History fail

And where did all of these ghastly people come from?

Britain heal thy self. ;-)

Having said that... didn't they dump all of their criminals in Australia too?

So when you really get down to it.... All of this nastiness falls on Britain's feet. ;-)

@AC re: Leaks... wuz Re: One thing I know...

I think if you review your history, while Churchill wasn't the PM he was still in politics.

But that's a different issue.

With respect to leaks....

Iraq actually leaked that they did have WMDs. Saddam admitted to it in the time before they strung him up. He did it to keep Iran at bay and didn't think the Americans were to gullible. For those who don't remember, Both Iran and Iraq lost generations in that war.

The interesting thing about leaks. All political entities leak information. Sometimes intentional. Its what you do with those leaks. In your example, they got to the right hands. BTW... here's a shocker. Everybody knew what was going to happen. They either lacked the proof or the desire to show their own hand. Remember what happened a couple of decades earlier. The leaks provided that proof.

The leaks themselves aren't the issue, its what you do with them and how you get them.

A whistle blower is usually someone who has legitimate access to the material taken. Manning didn't.

And to your point... leaking always wrong? No. Wikileaks? Yes. Which is why his early cohorts left and started their own site.

@AC Re: I always thought the values America was founded on

And you wonder why the Americans are so fond of their weapons.

It pains me that so many have forgotten their history lessons.

Granted you need to go back to roughly 1750's to start to see the issue, however, if we go back to the last century, we can see that in the 'Great War' the US sent troops and supported the Brits. Then in the second world war, we not only supplied the troops, but also the industrial capacity to bail the Brits out a second time.

Oh and even then during the Falklands... how did the UK's long range bombers get refueled?

The more you know.

Read 'The Nation Takes Shape' to understand a bit more of the 'Amerikan' understanding of our complex relationship.

Oh and the latest UK exports? Posh and Beckham? You can have them back... along with Simon Cowel...

Re: Abducting a UKUSA Citizen

First, a bit of reality...

The US hasn't done anything yet. There are things in motion that have to come to a conclusion prior to the US doing anything.

To your point, yes the US does have the capability to go 'yellow pages' anywhere in the world if they so wanted. Granted, the US has a spotty history in terms of 'wet work' where the Mossad and KGB are much better at it.

With respect to the Aussies, Assange hasn't contacted them for assistance, so they aren't going to do anything.

The US won't tighten any screws on Sweden. They don't have to do it. Sweden will do what it needs to do and when they are done with him, then the US can act if they so choose.

You are forgetting that while the US has a shoddy record with 'wet work' and clandestine operations... they do have an army of lawyers who are well versed in international law... To Assange, that's a much scarier proposition...

@AC

"Shame the UK doesn't take such extreme measures to get rid of people that are actually a threat to the the lives of the British population. But I guess they need to put on a good show for the USA."

I hate to bring a dash of reality to this but this has nothing to do with the US.

The truth is that when Assange fled to the UK and Sweden issued the EAW, The UK was obligated to provide due process for Sweden by complying with the EAW, and then provide Assange due process when he filed for an appeal, 3 actually in staying the EAW.

When Assange violated the terms of his bail, the UK is further obligated to enforce the law and seek his arrest. This has nothing to do with the US, but with the EU and Sweden. If the UK isn't willing to honor the treaties that it signs, then why should other countries honor their agreements with the UK.

The show is all Assange's doing, but its being played out for the sake of the EU and Sweden not the US.

Re: What does Assange know that we do not about Sweden?

That's actually a good question.

Occam's Razor would dictate that the simplest answer is usually the right answer...

Considering that during Manning's Article 32 hearing, the US Govt. presented evidence that Manning was allegedly receiving assistance from Assange during the commission of the crime. If true, any potential shield from the US Supreme court's '70s decision goes away. It would be the act of the theft and not the act of publishing the data which would be the crime...

So if the US has this information... why don't they extradite him?

Simple. They have time... let him face the music in Sweden. Then when its over, he's fair game. it also means that any entanglement of the EAW mess would be over.

Yes, its that simple. After Manning's Court Martial concludes, assuming that the alleged evidence is true, then Manning could flip on Assange in the hopes of reducing his sentence. (Or he could flip pending sentence. )

The evidence plus Manning's testimony would be enough that the US could legally extradite Assange from any Western country.

So why do something dumb when they can get what they want in due time?

@Psyx Correction...

If/When Assange is extradited to Sweden, charges will be filed. He will go straight to jail to await trial. He will not be give bail.

This much is certain. (Lets be honest, no judge is going to be foolish enough to grant bail in this specific case.

He will get assistance from the Australian consulate if he so desires since he is still an Aussie.

Beyond that... its all speculation. Regardless of the outcome, after the trial, he will be expelled from the country. My guess is that as an Australian citizen, he will be sent back to Australia.