Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder in last-ditch bid to avoid US extradition

Whatever you think of Assange, you should know why the US government wants to prosecute him. He published this among other things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Context: that's a US gunship firing on Reuters journalists among other civilians including kids.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- Isn’t it bonkers that they want to put him in jail for publishing a thing that is today hosted freely on YouTube?
  
  What if I told you that's not why at all.

Assange is a bit of a scumbag, but unrelatedly, his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others.
- Not a single non US citizen should be extradited to the US. The US has the worst prison system and punishments outside of some really cruel regimes. They also refuse to work with international criminal courts.
  Besides I'm pretty sure the guy only committed a crime in Sweden and not the US.
  
  Does he deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life?
  
  Can you really blame the man for picking sides after all the US has done to him personally over the years?
  
  What does this have do with the fact he's been jailed for years and is waiting extradition to usa? It literally looks like you are trying to spread dirt on him for no reason other than choosing what story to cover, something most publisher do on daily basis and on a much worst scale.
  "Trump totally didn’t offer him a pardon to say Russia had nothing to do with it."
  You may have missed the part where he's still in jail and the trump government had a plot to have him assasinated
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Later_years_in_the_embassy
  
  @BolexForSoup just to be clear are you saying that journalists with a political or ideological slant should not be afforded the same protections as other journalists?
- Especially since he isn't a citizen and shouldn't be subject to US laws.
  
  Unfortunately the whole “isn’t a citizen” thing might work against him. IIRC courts have ruled the Bill of Rights applies to citizens, including freedom of the press.
  The whole situation is absurd though.
- I'd say since the first full year of him living in an embassy ended, we can't be justified to call him a scumbag.
  Other than that - his sense of humor in the NetBSD fortune files and other traces in the Internet maybe sucks, but he's a better role model than Snowden (whose life is somehow much easier, which is suspicious really).
  
  Why would he be a better role model than Snowden?
- Freedom of information? He was pretty selective about which bits he released back in 2016. That guy can rot in prison for all I care.
  
  jfc we can't just let the state imprison journalists without pushback because we don't like the particular journalist
- How are you arriving at that idea?

thats what being a dissident gets you in the us.
may there be mercy on his soul if he even gets extradited.
- not even in the US

The Australian government voted on a motion to bring him home. He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
- Espionage is something wrong. Hiding behind a Russian website to make your posts that threaten us national security?
  That definitely a paddlin'. Widdew ol juwian did nuffink eh?
- He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
  You mean besides the rape where he hid in Ecuador until the statute of limitations ran out?
  
  Every political opponent of America is a rapist and their hard drive is filled with child porn when they get arrested
  There's a pattern here...
  It must be the pedophilia that makes them expose America
  
  Well, this is not the accusation that the US is interested in at the moment. You could say much worse things about trump, and he is running for presidency. So there is that.

Luckily political dissidents don’t need to fear for their life/freedom in the west, ow wait.
Btw what is up with those rape charges, or did Sweden conveniently drop them the moment Assange was pulled from that embassy?
- "On 12 August 2015, Swedish prosecutors announced that the statute of limitations had expired for three of the allegations against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. The investigation into the rape allegation was also dropped by Swedish authorities on 19 May 2017 because of Assange's asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.[5][6] Assange said in these proceedings that he feared he would ultimately be extradited to the United States if he were sent to Sweden.
  In May 2019, the Swedish Prosecution Authority reopened the investigation against Assange. The prosecutors expressed the intent to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom after he served his 50-week prison sentence for skipping bail.[7] In June 2019, the Uppsala District Court denied a request to detain Assange, thereby preventing his extradition to Sweden.
  As of 19 November 2019 the prosecution dropped the case because "the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed" although they were confident in the complainant.[8]"
  Wikipedia: Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority
  
  It was a rhetorical question, but yes, April 12: dragged out of embassy, November 19: Sweden drops charges. And soon thereafter America suddenly says they would like to extradite him to the US even though they denied this for years while Assange was in the embassy.

Honestly, I skimmed this title and thought it said he was found in a ditch. I’m surprised he has lasted this long.
- Too high profile for the ditch... Right now. He gonna get gulag like navlny until the regime is comfortable to dispose of him

I really wish Assange had been able to escape the US torture regime, like Snowden was able to esaping to Russia. Years and years of suffering all because the Obama regime needed to "make an example" of whistleblowers.
- Not even a whistleblower. A foreign journalist doing journalism.

I misread the title and thought it said "found in ditch"

- Right, I'm sure the US had nothing to do with the charges that Sweden was trying to file. I'm sure that Ecuador let him hide in the embassy since 2012 for no good reason
- it wasn't until he conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election that the US decided to SEEK extradition.
  Let's see ~~NATO~~Wikipedia over here...
  In 2012, diplomatic cables between Australia and the United States were released that showed the US government was investigating Assange and that "a broad range of possible charges are under consideration, including espionage and conspiracy". The diplomats dismissed claims the investigation was politically motivated, and highlighted prosecutors' claims that Manning was "guided by WikiLeaks' list of 'most wanted' leaks".[196]
  Idk man, seems pretty planned-out to me...
- I don't like this journalist's source, let's fucking kill him

To all the clowns here protecting Assange as a "dissident", I suggest you read up on his conmection to Israel Shamir.
Assange is a huge asshole who doesn't give a shit about journalism or exposing wrongdoing.
- He definitely (cherry) picks on the US of A. Does he have to take on everyone to be a True Scotsman?

- Fuck you
- liberal values on full display

He ran out the clock for the rape charge against him in Sweden? What a scumbag.
- Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
  He exposed US war crimes and therefore they made him an enemy of the state and want to make an example out of him, to show others that when going against the US you have no rights - they can torture you, imprison you forever, etc.
  
  Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
  Yes, that's a very popular conspiracy theory among his online supporters. It's founded in literally no material evidence of any kind, but that's never stopped a conspiracy theory from gaining traction.
  
  AFAIK the only reason one would rather fight extradition to the U.S. in the UK than fight extradition to the U.S. in Sweden is because one committed a heinous crime in Sweden.
  
  Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
  It wouldn't surprise me if the US did something like this, but considering the rampant history of powerful men in media/tech having a penchant of utilizing their power to sexually assault women, and the fact that there have been multiple reports from people working for wikileaks reporting him for sexual harassment..... I dont really doubt that he did sexually assault someone.
- to face trial over leaking military secrets.
  Yea it's definitely about the rape charges.
  
  We hold people accountable for that stuff here in America, you think we'd just let rapists be in charge of every aspect of our society? Here? Never!!
- Yeah, the statute of limitations ran out. Says a lot about our society if publishing publicly funded data has stricter penalties than raping 3 women. Either way the guy is a shit stain rapist and idgaf what happens to him. I'll save my sympathy for Snowden and Manning who haven't raped anyone.
  
  I give a fuck about what happens to him because he's being punished as a journalist, not as a rapist.
  If you think this will stop at journalists who happen to be rapists, you are sorely mistaken. At this point we're basically legalising treatment not that far from Kashoggi for journalists who handle military leaks, even the responsible, non-rapey ones.
  
  He should go to prison if he's guilty of rape, he should definitely not go to prison for Wikileaks.
  
  He has not been sentenced already, I hope you know that. I hope you also know the effort that he and his team made to have the trial been done where he was de-facto prisoner, but also the completely lack of flexibility from those who wanted him to simply step out of the embassy to arrest and extradite him.
  The timeline and the events are very well narrated in Stefania Maurizi's book. It's almost gross how much the rape accusations have been used to try to get to him and how poorly both British and Swedish authorities behaved, probably obeying to the US (colonial power much).