TL;DW Guy thinks information should be free. Thinks an informed society is important. Thinks journalistic freedom is necessary for that. Thinks Julian Assange should be free.
Video is about the circumstances around the foiling of the plot to get Julian Assange out of the country by means of becoming an Ecuador diplomat. There was a meeting between JA and an Ecuadorian diplomat during the final stages of the plan (end of 2017 I think). This was high priority for US intelligence. One company inspected the fire extinguishers just before the meeting. The fire extinguisher was later found to be bugged. Each day around the time of the meeting there was a Ford Focus or a police car parked in front of the building allegedly collecting signals from the bugs and being ready to rock if necessary (often there were multiple dudes in the car, once 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police car). High quality surveillance of one such car reveals a dude holding case notes mentioning what to do in case the video surveillance goes out and JA tries to leave the building, including shooting out tires. Mentions operation kudo (meaning has something to do with “friend”), which the presenter suspects to be a joint operation between the CIA and the London metropolitan police since it used MS7 (something like that) and MET acronyms. This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently. In the end Ecuador gave up on this plan due to diplomatic pressure from US.
Presenter was himself surveilled on behalf of the CIA but things have calmed down since a yahoo news article last year described some of the circumstances above, though he said it was also filled with some misinformation.
Seems a little overcooked: to be accredited as a diplomat requires the host country's assent. So Ecuador can't simply say "Mr Assange is our diplomat so you must give him free passage"; the UK govt can simply reject the proposed appointment.
As for shooting out the tyres, before contemplating such a reckless and dramatic Michael Bay violation of diplomatic protocol, public safety, and common sense, surely a simpler and well practiced technique like blocking the road, boxing in the car underway with some police vehicles, or simply intercepting it at the airport would be preferred?
This comes up every so often with regard to high speed chases: "Why not just let him go and then make the arrest after things have calmed down? We know where he lives." The answer to that question is very simple: you are operation under the premise that you can accurately predict your target's future actions. You cannot, and it is laughably foolish to think otherwise. This is why, in the US military at least, the prevention of prisoner escape is a justification for deadly force regardless of the reason for imprisonment - mind reading isn't even attempted.
So with that in mind, do you still think you know enough about Assange's state of mind (and the minds of an unknown number of unknown confederates) to accurately predict what he would do? Because he might have no intention of making a predictably foolish b-line for an exit point, he might be happy to momentarily break surveillance and lay low in a warehouse while his lawnchair weather balloon is readied.
That said, Assange has been horribly mistreated and his tormentors will never have to answer to it.
> US military at least, the prevention of prisoner escape is a justification for deadly force regardless of the reason for imprisonment
Well, the world is aware that the US tends to have a "shoot first, ask later" policy.
Meanwhile, time for your regular reminder that in the UK policing operates on a consent basis. Overall this basis has served the UK well for the last few hundred years.
Even Tasers are classed as a weapon requiring specific training prior to issue.
So, for example in London there are about 40,000 officers, only about 7,000 of them are issued with tasers, even fewer of them get to walk around with pistols, and even fewer of them get to drive around in cars with semi-automatics in the boot.
Use of a weapon is taken seriously, if an officer discharges in public, it results in instant referral to the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) for independent investigation. This is not with a view of punishing the officer (unless they did wrong, obviously), but with the view of reviewing processes and procedures and whether use of the weapon could have been avoided (or indeed done better).
I'll take UK policing over US policing any day of the week.
And that's in London which has the highest security in the nation. Outside of London you will almost never see a cop with a gun, and rarely a Taser.
I remember once when I was much younger I was illegally posting signs for an event around the city. There was a complaint and some cops pulled up. They came up and asked "Do you have any dangerous weapons on you, boys?" and I said "Like this?" and whipped a pair of big scissors out of my pocket right to the cop's face. I didn't mean to pull them out so quickly and menacingly, it just happened. The cop jumped back, surprised, and said "Watch it mate! You could have had my eye out!" and then laughed. We all laughed and he told us to stop being naughty. And that was that.
> Well, the world is aware that the US tends to have a "shoot first, ask later" policy.
The larger point that you seem to have missed being that the US military doesn't do anything without a logical or historical justification (barring cases involving immediate political pressure). They've either thoroughly thought it through or there are a lot of bodies behind the silliest of rules. Why do they insist on putting the non-dominant hand flat on top of the grenade spoon before pulling the pin? I dunno, but I'm sure a bunch of people died not doing it.
> I'll take UK policing over US policing any day of the week.
I'm sure you would, at this moment. But we'll see if that holds given the direction of the trendlines. It is always funny to me when people compare culturally homogenous countries to the US. There is a reason why Japan has such a low crime rate - and it isn't due to gun control.
In any case, it is silly to pretend that the UK isn't dancing to the tune of the US in this case - so pointing to anything the UK may do better is doubly silly.
By invoking the US military you have lost the plot. There is no justification for a US military type response to a journalist. Neither the London police nor the CIA are military.
You’re starting from a point that hasn’t been established.
> response to a journalist
You call him a journalist. The US government calls him a Russian asset. The UK court agrees more with them than you or he wouldn’t be holed up in an embassy.
The main dogma of media today is that you have to let governments create their own reality. If they say black is white, you say black is white, possibly with a note that some people contest claim that black is merely black.
No matter how unreliable they are, no matter how many times they've deliberately lied to you, next time you are obliged to trust them again. To do otherwise would be disloyal. The courts are objective and independent, because the courts say so.
In the latest court abuse of Assange, the UK wigs literally made that argument, that the US assurances MUST be trusted, and dismissed attempts to even argue from earlier betrayals that the US assurances might not be trustworthy.
If you accept this line of argument, you literally will accept anything.
Of all the things Assange has done to unmask the powerful, nothing has been as damning as the way they unmasked themselves, in their fury in attempting to "get" him.
Exactly like Putin. He likes to call all of the journalists he locks up foreign agents and the US always condemns him.
His less intellectually inclined supporters are generally of the view that their government can be trusted to make these kinds of judgements and that the journalists really are foreign agents.
The point is with regard to escalation of force rationale, getting bent out of shape about the mere mention of the big bad US military is a pathetic response. No, the London police and the CIA aren't military - neither enjoy anything approaching the same level of institutional memory, something that directly informs well thought out contingency planning.
> It is always funny to me when people compare culturally homogenous countries to the US.
Never been to london I take it.
Its always funny when Americans comment on the rest of the world, maintaining the illusion with all their exceptional talent that they could, if needed, point to their own country on a map let alone find any other.
For my part, I always find it amusing when people from {the area in which the EU is dominant} hear a rhetorical comparison country-to-country and respond citing a major region from their part of the world.
It really underlines how massive the US is, and how hard that is for outsiders to truly comprehend.
> Which is smaller than its poor neighbours to the north
Canada.
Indeed Canada does possess more territory — and yet the population remains concentrated almost entirely within 100 miles of the US Border(s). I find it drives home how much more thoroughly the US saturates the territory compared to countries of similar geographical size (which isn’t exactly the measure I was getting at — I was aiming for population density and sprawl — but does seem to be where other comment’s focus lies).
> If we go ahead and exclude the massive Alaska, the 48
contiguous states and the District of Columbia are about
the size of Australia.
Again, I can certainly understand needing to impose random limits to reduce the scale and thereby assist with comprehension — but I’m not sure why we’d pursue that particular hypothetical. If we go ahead and exclude London, the UK becomes an island of farmers without means of export — but London exists, and so does Alaska, so it’s rather a moot point.
> China and its similar geographic size to the US.
I would assume most people on Earth are aware of both China and the US; both countries are exceptional in the areas you’ve highlighted — thus why they, and they alone, are known as the world’s “superpowers”.
But regarding diversity of the population, which was the original point here, I think you’ll find the US remains at the forefront.
> Actually the original point was about policing policy in London, where the article in question is set.
Apologies, I meant my original point, in responding to you here:
> Never been to london I take it. Its always funny when Americans comment on the rest of the world, maintaining the illusion with all their exceptional talent that they could, if needed, point to their own country on a map let alone find any other.
Apologies for not specifying; I rather thought the context would do the job for me! Relatedly:
> A city where ~30% of the population were not born in the country and >40% are from ethnic minorities. Hardly culturally homogenous.
Again (and for the final time), nobody is arguing that London is not a melting pot.
_My_ point -- as you keep repeatedly underlining on my behalf -- is that outsiders often try to compare the diversity present in the US with the diversity present in a singular city or region of their own home country, without understanding the degree to which the difference in scale, density, and spread serve to create a wholly different experience.
The UK is pretty culturally diverse. But even if it wasn’t, what would that have to do with policing standards and procedures? In any case, it seems you need adjust at least some of your priors lest you lend yourself to cultural myopia
Not to support or rebuff the parent comment, but cultural homogeneity has everything to do with policing standards.
On the positive side, when people feel more connected to each other, more predictable, the odds for miscommunication or misinterpretation are greatly reduced. Further, people within such environments typically have stronger support systems.
On the negative side, there tends to be more pressure, from more sources, to do as those around you are doing. This is a double edged sword, as it can propagate both good and bad behaviors.
This all would play a role in defining police procedures, as it would contribute to a set of expectations, of the police and the people they are dealing with.
> But even if it wasn’t, what would that have to do with policing standards and procedures?
Notice anything about the ordering of that list? It almost looks as if cultural homogeneity shares some connection to high trust societies...
> ...you need adjust at least some of your priors lest you lend yourself to cultural myopia...
Take your own advice, the statistics are so lopsided that even the self deluded find it impossible to spin them - and instead fallback to a weak "thats racist!" defense.
>...his tormentors will never have to answer to it.
Why the defeatist attitude? It has been established that the truth will eventually surface with sufficient education, public awareness and time. When the truth is out, justice will follow. The world does not operate on a "might is right" model.
> The world does not operate on a "might is right" model.
I'd hate to be the cynic in the room, but the actions of various powerful countries has show the opposite.
In general, it seems like if the truth does surface, it's met with general ambivalence and nothing much happens to anyone involved. I'll cop out on concrete examples and just say that I find them too numerous and depressing.
Addressing this feels like how I imagine it would feel to drop a cinderblock on a box of kittens...
> It has been established that the truth will eventually surface with sufficient education, public awareness and time.
Not really, but even in the case where it might be partially true - it would definitely be a non-linear function of time. By that I mean the immediate dispersion of true information would be zero, the mid-point would be the max, and then there would be a long tail of disinformation. The winners write the history, and the historians present the stories based on some criteria - and you can be sure that it isn't objective. Have you ever noticed the way that philosophical teachings, the ones going back thousands of years, all promote some kind of social stratification that favors a ruling class? Plato's Republic being an easy example. Ever wonder why? Hint: it isn't because it reflects some emergent quality of the human condition.
> The world does not operate on a "might is right" model.
Unfortunately it absolutely does, or at least has - forever. I'm pretty confident this is the reason why the common theme for religion is the concept of balancing force that is dependent on faith alone. A universal karma, an afterlife. If justice were the rule of the day then these things wouldn't be needed.
The only thing I see potentially changing any of this is solidly rooted in the cryptoanarchy sphere - because misrepresented math simply doesn't function, halting the propagation of corrupting influence in a way no other system can.
> This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently.
I don’t quite understand, are the CIA and London police not allowed to work together? I figured the CIA (and the equivalent in other countries) would often work with other powers.
Edit: oops, I think I misunderstood. It would be a breach for them to interfere with the embassy, not for them to work together.
The 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police van that, presumably, had 8 cops huddled enduring one another inside. Anyway, 8 men probably dressed as cops.
Of course there is no way to know if they were actual London Metro police, or just bozos wearing cop uniforms. But, how much difference is there, really? It comes down to whether they still wore them a month later.
Impression was that the misinformation in the Yahoo piece was the reporter spicing up the story to make it seem more interesting.
Thank you for posting the TL;DR @marktucker. It saves everyone watching a video that is no doubt full of pure invented FUD and BS.
Why do I say that ? Because of the "shooting out tires" bit.
1. Its a dumb American thing, no way in hell it would be permitted in the UK .. actually no, to give the yanks their due, I don't event think they would start shooting at tyres randomly on a public street. ;-)
2. Ecuadorian Embassy is in Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Anyone who has ever lived or worked in London will very quickly tell you that (a) Shooting at tyres in that neck of the wood is likely to result in far too many casualties and collateral damage to very expensive assets (b) There is unlikely to be a need to do so because there is both heavy police presence in that neck of the woods AND a lot of vehicular traffic (i.e. no chance for a fast car getaway, you'll end up stuck in traffic sooner or later).
The MI5 have explicitly given themselves permission to do illegal things. Makes sense when you consider that a good number of the people who willingly join it, probably are idiots who have watched too many Bond movies.
I suspect all secretive organizations, from mafias to lodges to intelligence services, get shaped by influx of pop culture ideas of what they do, more than they would like to admit.
Though, it's actually a good sign that they moved to get it into a bill (the "Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill") rather than merely having it as an informal policy. Shows they're at least slightly worried about having to answer for their crimes one day.
I realize you're just using that as an expression, but I recently watched an old Columbo episode [1] that featured just that, and if it were true it would be the literal dumbest thing.
On the field on foreign soil it'd be dumb, yes. They likely have some fake identity issued by the US government which the proper US government officials can direct to them being a CIA asset. Ie. they'll look like normal civilians, probably even with a company, job, Facebook, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't just some private detective paid just over minimum wage to sit there for multiple years and radio in if anything happens.
I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't just 3 fairly muscular dudes paid just over minimum wage to sit there for multiple years and radio in if anything happens.
The guarding of the embassy to stop assange from walking out cost £3mil a year, thats a lot of muscular dudes sitting in cars drinking coffee 24 hours a day.
TL;DW Guy thinks information should be free. Thinks an informed society is important. Thinks journalistic freedom is necessary for that. Thinks Julian Assange should be free.
Video is about the circumstances around the foiling of the plot to get Julian Assange out of the country by means of becoming an Ecuador diplomat. There was a meeting between JA and an Ecuadorian diplomat during the final stages of the plan (end of 2017 I think). This was high priority for US intelligence. One company inspected the fire extinguishers just before the meeting. The fire extinguisher was later found to be bugged. Each day around the time of the meeting there was a Ford Focus or a police car parked in front of the building allegedly collecting signals from the bugs and being ready to rock if necessary (often there were multiple dudes in the car, once 8 cups of coffee were brought to a police car). High quality surveillance of one such car reveals a dude holding case notes mentioning what to do in case the video surveillance goes out and JA tries to leave the building, including shooting out tires. Mentions operation kudo (meaning has something to do with “friend”), which the presenter suspects to be a joint operation between the CIA and the London metropolitan police since it used MS7 (something like that) and MET acronyms. This would all be very much a breach of inviolability of diplomatic missions from Vienna convention. Lawsuits are underway apparently. In the end Ecuador gave up on this plan due to diplomatic pressure from US.
Presenter was himself surveilled on behalf of the CIA but things have calmed down since a yahoo news article last year described some of the circumstances above, though he said it was also filled with some misinformation.
Might not be 100% accurate. I was distracted.