> the assurances would need to include “that the applicant (Assange) is permitted to rely on the first amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed”.
I wonder what would happen if the US gave these assurances then broke them ?
Also, what kind of sentence would Julian face even if he get these assurances ? Could it be anything lower than life in jail ?
Then the US would not be able to extradite anyone from a country that requires assurances ever again. Given that the US still has the death penalty for many crimes this would cripple its ability to extradite.
Yeah, once you start kidnapping your allies citizens openly, a lot less goodwill will be returned. And the US isn't powerful enough to just bully the rest of the world without repercussions.
> US have enough leverage to extradite anyone they want
I thought that was the case but I think Assange proves that's not as strong as many expected. I think it was reasonable to expect him being extradited 10 years ago, it's surprising he hasn't been yet.
What I do think the US achieved was pressuring the UK into not extraditing him to Sweden. He was charged with crimes there that seemed much more clear cut – not espionage, just a regular case that anyone else would be extradited for. Whether you think that was a conspiracy or not, in isolation it was a justified extradition with no safety concerns, so the US clearly has some sway in preventing it.
The UK is known for having an extremely slow and thorough extradition process with a lot of appeals. For example, the case of Abu Hamza (Captain Hook).
> I wonder what would happen if the US gave these assurances then broke them ?
The English courts are permitted to take into account whether assurances for previous extraditions have been complied with:
> When considering the adequacy of an assurance in any particular case, the courts should place appropriate weight on any assurance previously obtained in extradition requests from the same requesting country.
...this is of little comfort to Assange, but it does mean that there is an incentive for the country issuing the assurances to comply with them, otherwise their future extradition requests have a greatly increased chance of being denied.
> I wonder what would happen if the US gave these assurances then broke them ?
Regarding the death penalty part: extraditions from Germany (and probably all of Europe) would immediately stop in capital cases. Those all rely on American assurances, and the first time it's broken, courts will disregard them for a long time.
"Would" is a strong word. "Might" seems a bit more reasonable. There is currently an escalating war in Europe and Germany has already rolled over and accepted the Nord Stream pipe as an act of God. Well, I don't actually know where their investigation is up to, but they're not acting like their infrastructure was attacked by a military. They're just taking it on the chin, probably some strongly worded diplomatic protests. If that was a pipeline heading in to the continental US a country would have been removed from the map by now.
With that so large in the rear view mirror, are they really in a position to start defying the US on extraditions? The US will claim this is a special case and Germany will probably go with it in practice.
Probably the Germans and the Russians working together, I would say. Makes the most sense, after all, what losing the billions they invested together in building it would hurt everyone else the most, right?
Given that the US has turned itself into an unreliable defense partner, not sure why they wouldn't stick to German law in Germany, not like the government can just bypass the courts.
Also, if a hypothetical US pipeline had been attacked by a large nuclear armed adversary, pretty sure that country would still be on the map...
> Also, if a hypothetical US pipeline had been attacked by a large nuclear armed adversary, pretty sure that country would still be on the map...
Doesn't have to be the same country. There is a bit of history in recent times; US went in to Afghanistan to find Osama and Iraq to find WMD. Turned out both were only to be found in Pakistan.
I dunno, is the German judiciary powerful enough to be independent of the US? In theory the entire country has independent sovereignty but it doesn't isn't in a position to exercise it to full effect. It doesn't come up very often, but in physical reality the judiciary's independence rests on the beliefs of a country's police chiefs and generals.
The US has a history of just doing what it wants in Europe when it comes to renditions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition [0]). It isn't out of the question that they just grab these people and the judiciary can go sort itself out. There were reports that they were considering assassinating Assange and being done with it. I assume the fact he isn't much of a threat going forward and that his miserable existence is an object lesson in defying the US stood him in good stead against those ideas.
[0] I liked the 2006 resolution that called on that the US to stop doing these things and apologise. The good old fashioned sternly worded letter is one of my favourite parts of politics.
Why do you think extraordinary renditions happen (rarely, but sometimes)? If a German district judge would just read the newspaper, conclude that "America wants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri" and obediently judges accordingly, America wouldn't have gone to all that trouble.
If your argument is that the judiciary can afford to be independent because the US will ignore them and just take anyone who they think is important to their interests then yes, I can see that as a reasonable possibility. But it is also a reasonable possibility that the courts cave in. It depends what sort of pressure the US brings in to play.
If you're arguing that the German judiciary had influence over the fate of Khaled El-Masri then I'm not sure how the argument is meant to hang together. They seem to have been powerless in that instance. The outcome depended on the CIA's judgement.
> Julian Assange may still be extradited to the US in three weeks if US Gov provides "assurances" - previously deemed by Amnesty as "inherently unreliable" - including that he will not be prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality and not receive the death penalty
I still don't understand how a country can grant extradition of a non US citizen to the USA for "espionage". Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies. The only limits are resources.
What would the alternative be? Expats can commit cyber crimes risk-free? Just don't be a citizen of the country you reside in or the country you're attacking and you're immune!
They can extradite him because Australia says that they can. Most of our countries at the highest levels agreed to this. It's called international law and it's messy.
Not an expat. Julian Assange is not a US citizen, not on US ground, does not work for a US company. He can’t be committing “espionage” because he’s not inside; at most he can be committing “reporting” upon US practices.
Same question arose when EU wrote the GDPR: It was a debate at the time that a US company with no activity in EU could be trialled in EU for misdemeanor against EU laws. Apparently it can.
I think the case against Assange is a bit flimsy. But this argument doesn’t hold. If you hire a hitman and kill someone in the US, you commit a crime in the US. Even if you are not a US citizen of, have never been to the US and don’t work for a US company.
If you insult the prophet Mohammed in a Facebook post should Iran be able to extradite you from the USA to Iran in order to charge and punish you for committing that crime in their country?
Obviously not. Yet the USA does this routinely. It's effectively what Assange did.
No, the USA is specifically only charging him with publication of unredacted documents. They are not charging him with obtaining the secrets (that was Manning) but just with publishing them without redacting the names of US informants. At least, that's what they're claiming at the extradition; what they subsequently choose to actually charge him with once he's on US soil is a different thing.
I suspect part of the answer is that most or all countries regard leading information to the the public to be far worse than leaking it to other countries.
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
Very true. The UK spying on Belgium and the US spying on Germany come to mind., but that is "business as usual" and no one expects it to change or start going after people involved.
Espionage and disclosure are two different things.
Espionage is expected and deterred as possible but because everyone has spies everyone tends to play nice when they get caught, because they don’t want their own agents mistreated.
Disclosure, on the other hand, threatens the power structure of all players.
People need to understand that the every person is meant to be firmly under the foot of the ruling class, and understanding the mechanisms by which this is accomplished is verboten. The excuses range from “what about the children” to “national security” but the goal is the same - maintaining a healthy imbalance of information and power.
Anything that significantly threatens that imbalance will be met with extreme prejudice. JA overplayed his hand and underestimated the willingness of those involved to absorb casualties in order to stem the proliferation of infrastructure which might work against that treasured monopoly of coercion.
Encryption, distributed systems, anonymous networks, and related technologies are the only effective means to provide a counter to the asymmetric threats that endanger our personal agency.
These technologies are much more important to a free society than any possible harm that they may facilitate. Those harms existed before the internet, and will not go away if they are made slightly more difficult.
The ability to pervasively maintain an efficiently functioning surveillance state requires the internet, and P/A technologies are critical to countering the efficiency of this capability.
"Encryption, distributed systems, anonymous networks, and related technologies are the only effective means to provide a counter to the asymmetric threats that endanger our personal agency."
FWIW there was a special investigation into the US spying in Germany but it didn't lead anywhere because there was no political desire to create any consequences. It seems to boil down to everyone in government who was affected already having been aware that the US is likely spying on them and shrugging it off as a cost of doing business with the US. Additionally the US used to have a legal provision in West Germany that provided them a carte blanche for various covert ops shenanigans due to the outcome of World War 2. Officially this contract ended eventually but everyone aware of that history seems to be certain that it was merely replaced by similar but less publicly visible agreements.
> I still don't understand how a country can grant extradition of a non US citizen to the USA for "espionage".
The act happened on a computer system with-in US jurisdiction.
See also "Three North Korean Military Hackers Indicted in Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes Across the Globe":
> Indictment Expands 2018 Case that Detailed Attack on Sony Pictures and Creation of WannaCry Ransomware by Adding Two New Defendants and Recent Global Schemes to Steal Money and Cryptocurrency from Banks and Businesses while Operating in North Korea, China
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
There are 'official' spies that have diplomatic immunity, and so cannot be charged, but can be expelled. The 'unofficial' spies can certainly be charged:
When it comes to cyber-y stuff, certainly countries work against each other, but if it's a "group" that is doing the attacks, it may be hard to identify the individuals, but when they are identified, they can be charged:
> The act happened on a computer system with-in US jurisdiction.
So let's say I google some information about Koran and find a website with Koran, analysis etc. Turns out it's hosted in Saudi Arabia, and the act of me, an atheist, reading Koran is blasphemy, punishable with death.
So should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia, given that the act happened on a computer system with-in Saudi Arabia?
> So should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia, given that the act happened on a computer system with-in Saudi Arabia?
IANAL: AIUI, extradition generally only occurs if the (alleged) action is a crime in both jurisdiction.
> If Country A has no laws against blasphemy, for example, a lack of double criminality could prevent a suspect from being extradited from Country A to face blasphemy charges in another country, i.e. no outbound extradition from Country A, and neither are citizens of Country A eligible for international prisoner transfers from another country having criminally convicted them for blasphemy, i.e. no inbound prisoner transfer to Country A.
Blasphemy (against the Quran) is not a crime in (e.g.) the US, so generally you could not be extradited from there for it. Also, there is no the treaty:
Whereas (say) unauthorized computer access is a crime in many places, and so it could be a mutual-crime eligible for extradition.
Of course if you live in Country A and are charged in Country B which has no treaty with A, you could potentially (IANAL) be arrested in Country C—which does have a treaty with B—if you were travelling there.
That's kind of the point. Assange wasn't acting on behalf of his country. If he was, there'd be much less of an issue.
I think it's a miscarriage of justice that Assange is just sitting in jail. At the same time, his defenders don't admit that he solicited and provided technical assistance to Americans who expressed interest in stealing secrets. Plus he's almost certainly a creep. The condom-removal allegations are very likely true. While not relevant to his crimes, this makes him much less sympathetic.
It's a complex legal matter and nobody involved is in any rush to make hasty decisions, because they may impact future extradition requests. Speaking of the future, intentional or not, Assange's case has a freezing effect on people who might be thinking of sharing secrets. That's already a win for those who don't want secrets to be shared with the public.
>Speaking of the future, intentional or not, Assange's case has a freezing effect on people who might be thinking of sharing secrets
Saying Assange "shared" secrets seems incorrect. Manning shared secrets with Assange so that Assange could publish them.
Punishing Manning surely scared those considering sharing secrets. Punishing Assange would frighten those considering publishing secrets, something the US has generally been unable to freely do.
From my position, your post looked like it was saying the prosecution of Assange would scare whistleblowers not journalists. You probably meant publishers, but I figured clarification would be better.
I say that, but my post also could use clarification. The US has typically been unable to scare publishers of documents, the last time they really tried was with the Pentagon Papers and the Supreme Court ruled they couldn't punish publishers.
It's important to keep in mind that this is not just about the US. Countries not aligned with the US may have an interest in exposing the US but most countries do not have an interest of being exposed in a similar manner and setting an example with Assange not only deters exposure of the US but exposure of any of the countries aligned with the US and supporting the extradition.
Arguably, the rest of the "free world" can be seen as provinces of an American Empire with their independence. From that perspective, the Assange extradition makes perfect sense.
This isn't as crazy as it sounds because the Roman Empire had provinces which were technically "independent" monarchies aligned with Rome. Most famously, Egypt under Cleopatra and Judea under Herod.
I think the "free world" here is not a reference to the people's freedom but a reference to the sovereignty & freedom of national governments themselves w.r.t to certain policies on the global stage.
From the individual level, obviously the US and its allies are the freest countries in the world. US adversaries are basically all obvious tyrannies of one form or another.
But US allies are not "free" in the sense that they can't do something that the US really doesn't like. Japan's government, for example, would not be trying to repeal its pacifist constitution unless they had the US's blessing to re-militarize.
Basically, there are 2 different senses in which a country can be called "free". But even in the individual liberty sense, a libertarian (either of the Ron Paul or Noam Chomsky variants) would not consider the US or any of its allies to be free and acting like they are libertarian countries is a good way to become a martyr.
> Arguably, the rest of the "free world" can be seen as provinces of an American Empire with their independence
Arguably, this is bullshit. The UK might be dangerously friendly with the US on multiple fronts, but e.g. France has refused to extradite Polanski forever, refuses to hand over control of their nukes to NATO, and pursues an independent but aligned foreign policy to the US.
Polanski is French citizen though and key figure in the French cultural circles, also he was well connected enough to be let go in the US in the first place multiple times .
While US would prosecute him if they could , they have not tried anywhere as hard to extradite him like they are doing with Assange .
Assange is not a UK citizen , UK has some of the weirdest privacy and human rights laws they are not fully part of EHCR anymore and actively trying to deport refugees to Rwanda , France is hardly in the same category as UK .
I wouldn’t characterize UK as country with strong human rights they are pretty exploitative (see how they treated windrush generation or the Gurkhas )
Polanski is very different from Assange. Assange exposed US government secrets which directly threatens the US government's power. From the perspective of a government, that's far more serious a crime than (allegedly) raping a child because it directly harmed the US government's interests.
Crimes that directly threaten the sovereign are always the most serious crimes especially if they involve waging war against it or undermining its war effort. This is a constant throughout all societies. The next most serious class of crimes would be those that undermine the state's control of the financial system which is critical to its power. That's also why the US government has thrown the book at those who trespassed in the Capitol as part of a comically incompetent attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Likewise, intentional tax evasion is going to get the book thrown at you. When the state feels genuinely threatened, "human rights" and "constitutional rights" are irrelevant and will be "interpreted" to allow whatever the state wishes to do.
> has thrown the book at those who trespassed in the Capitol
Really? It doesn't seem that way at all to me, it seems only few rioters have been given a slap on the wrist, none of the key organizers are in jail, neither is head of the moment, many of them who attempted to overthrow the government are serving in congress even now. The leader is the presumptive nominee of a major political party and openly talks about being a dictator when elected. Not one have been disqualified under 14th amendment and does not look at all likely before the election.
The extremely slow speed and ineptitude at which the system has moved so far is just astonishing and is completely counter to your point on Government moves faster, harder when its survival is at stake, compare that to say how quickly Brazil has reacted to a similar attempt by Jair Bolsonaro.
> far more serious a crime than (allegedly) raping a child because
It is sad that we have come far to these days characterize actions by foreign reporters not subject to any U.S. law whatsoever and who merely published and did not leak themselves damning evidence of atrocities and war crimes committed in violation of Geneva convention of which US is a signatory as crimes.
Also I cannot but help notice that you feel need to say allegedly about an horrific incident in which no one disputes the facts, but afford no such benefit of doubt to Assange.
Important part is that it is the countries spying in each other not private individuals.
This gives the spy protection as both sides are spying on each other so usually what happens is some snarky comment/strongly worded letter and expulsion of a few spies back to their home country from both sides.
In the worst case someone goes to prison but usually in response the other side also finds some spies to put into prison too as "revenge".
Also whatever information the spies manage to get in general is not released to the public.
It's a bit rich to be lectured by Russia on freedom of speech.
Word to Russia: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:3-5, English Standard Version.)
I mean, look, the US should be judged for how it upholds its own values, and it does so less than perfectly. It justly deserves condemnation for when and where it falls short of its own stated values. But Russia... does Russia really want countries to be judged by freedom of speech?
Paragraph 210 of the judgment argues why the US's kidnapping/assassination plot is not a valid ground for refusing the extradition:
> [...] On the face of the allegations (on the evidence before the judge and the fresh evidence) the contemplation of extreme measures against the applicant (whether poisoning for example or rendition) were a response to the fear that the applicant might flee to Russia. The short answer to this, is that the rationale for such conduct is removed if the applicant is extradited. Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away.
What an utterly absurd judgment, that should have no place on a free society. They have a literal kidnapping/assassination plot, and yet the Judge considers it all above board and that it doesn't show any prejudice.
Wrecklessly and without simple redaction, in such a way that very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials. And highly questionable selective publishing.
I think the guy is getting fucked over in this unfairly, but let's not pretend he has released information to a reasonable standard.
> Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group which had been maintaining a backup version of the WikiLeaks site, revoked its support for the whistleblowing site in the wake of the decision.
> "Some of the new cables have reportedly not been redacted and show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan," it said in a statement. "While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected."
> The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication.
> The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros ; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG.
> “We are deeply concerned that WikiLeaks decided to make public the names of diplomatic sources who may face reprisals by oppressive governments,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an independent nonprofit organization.
> "We fear the names could create new targets", Nader Nadery, the president of the AIHRC, told the French news agency AFP.
> The WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, replied to the letter by asking the groups concerned to help WikiLeaks redact the names. He also threatened to expose Amnesty if it refused to provide staff to help with the task, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Assange "threatened to expose Amnesty" International?
To me it seems that Assange was not pursuing some noble cause, but was on some kind of vendetta, given all the (collateral?) damage he was causing to others.
(Generally I knew of him, given he often made headlines, but have never really dug into the details.)
Of course he wants to affect political outcomes. Is that not the entire point? The US is committing war crimes, why would he _not_ want this to change?
Also, how would unbiased reporting on war crimes look like?
Lastly, does "having an agenda", whatever that might mean to you, change anything about the facts that were presented? Does it make the crimes the US is committing any less severe?
Firstly, your comment makes absolutely no sense at all. Are you genuinely asking whether the US has committed war crimes in Iraq?
The treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison is a war crime. The raping of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is a war crime. The subsequent killing of her and her family is a war crime. The Haditha massacre is a war crime. And these are just _some_ of the most well-known ones.
Also, Collateral Murder is not any less gruesome, just because it isn't "terrible enough to be a war crime". That is absurd and dangerous thinking. In the very least, the actions shown, especially the attack on the van, can, without a doubt, be classified as murder. Murder is a crime, and the people who commit crimes should be held accountable for them.
All of this is over the Manning leaks, where Assange tried to go over the documents with the US government so he could do a responsible disclosure. The US refused.
He then got a team of journalists together to sift through the documents to make sure things were properly disclosed. Some Guardian journalists then published the encryption keys in a book.
I seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. The Journalists wanted to take their time and carefully filter out any info that was not necessary such as informants identities. Assange wanted to get the stuff out as quickly as possible perhaps out of fear of being stopped before it was released.
Snowden's mistake was revealing himself. He should've done what the Panama Papers leaker did.
>seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking.
After the keys had already leaked, there was a disagreement whether Wikileaks should continue their plan of slowly publishing things as they went through them or dump everything since it was already in the public.
But before "the Journalists" leaked the keys, Assange was in charge of a massive undertaking to sort through the documents for responsible disclosure.
there is something to be said about quoting human rights orgs when the country in question does not agree to hold it's own soldiers and generals accountable under these same orgs
When I served in Afghanistan the locals would tip us off about ambushes or IEDs. Should those people be killed for warning us and potentially saving my life?
I think your point is fully valid. I would balance it with the notion that they (people undertaking huge personal risk) would be better protected - if there was less natural pressure to acquire/release info that gets over-classified to protect political interests.¹
Stated otherwise, if US Gov could be relied on to honor it's ethical obligations to taxpayers and release the entirety of info that it ought, I argue that fewer unqualified people would feel responsibility to take that upon themselves.
At the very least, I see him now as a warning to others that powerful state actors are happy to use free-information advocates as pawns in their agenda to destabilize their opponents.
Yes, it is considered a cardinal sin to discredit authority through embarrassment. It may not be an official crime, but they will make it feel that way. This isn't unique to governments. Try discrediting any authority figure with embarassment (parent, teacher, manager, police) and watch what happens. The result somewhat irrational and ego driven, but it's relatively consistent.
You know that's not true because if the US govt were what you seem to allege (extradites and arrests mere critics) then you wouldn't be safe to post this here.
It's also a national pastime to crap on the government. Are you not aware that thousands of reporters and millions of people embarrass the US government every day?
You appear to have a different definition of "embarrass the government" than I do. Embarrassing a government is an action that they are willing to kill people over (like reporters). There's a big difference between leaking state secrets that materially harms the government and poking fun at them. One will get you disappeared and tortured-not-tortured, the other is a useful distraction.
Lions don't attack every animal that sets foot on their turf.
The release of "Collateral Murder" damaged public opinion of the US invasion of Iraq and US foreign policy in general. If journalists embarrass the US government by telling them their nose looks funny, Assange embarrassed them by pulling their pants down at the half time show at the Superbowl.
most effective way of dissent is to ridicule and embarrass them. Why bother with challenging or "debunking" their lies when you can just make fun of them.
sadly Assange was not a "funny man" and totally lacked the gift of humor. So the only tool he had was his rightousness coupled with his will to embarrass.
Sadly for him he is a self obsessed and attention seeking cretin. Would he have had any charisma or the gift of humor the outrage of what was done against him would be a lot bigger. One can only dream of the damage that could have been done against these criminals in the US and Britain (and the EU) by somebody who knows how to package these things into better. The raggedy Wikileaks outlet was never going to be capable of this. A shame because anyone who believes in civil rights all over the world deserves better.
Knowingly handling stolen (secret) property is still a crime. It's not about the embarrassment. If he only released the infamous helicopter attack or specific "criminal" documents, that'd be one thing. However, he dumped the entire diplomatic communications (among other stuff) that literally put people's jobs, careers, and even lives in jeopardy who were doing nothing illegal, immoral, or wrong. Most of the dumped data was mundane, but still classified.
Embarrassing leaks have happened many times (pentagon papers*, watergate, Iran–Contra affair among others) and the leakers didn't go to jail
Even worse his ego took over and wikileaks became the julian assange show; he reminded me of every cult leader I've ever seen. He's now experiencing FAFO for his arrogance.
*Though the gov't tried to charge Ellsberg with stealing/releasing classified data, the fact that he was highly selective is what saved him from jail time.
A mid-level diplomat in some authoritarian country writing a blunt opinion/analysis of its government's possibly dangerous leaders is not spying on every American.
That's my original point. Assange/Wikileaks made little, if any, distinction between an American mid-level diplomat that's stationed at an embassy sending intel on the mistresses, corruption, or misdeeds of the local leadership and the genuine terrible things that were covered up and arguably should have been leaked.
Leaking government misdeeds is whistle-blowing and has legal and moral justifications (and when wikileaks first arrived on the scene I was 100% supportive of it). Leaking troves of generic government data that's unrelated to any misdeeds, is a crime. Assange, for a host of reasons, decided to do the latter and is now in a FAFO situation.
The leaks Assange provided proved a great deal of willing and intentional illegal activity by the government. It exposed several instances of officials lying to congress, it exposed a spying program that is not only unconstitutional but wiretapping in that manner is itself illegal.
Nobody went to jail. The only people who go to jail for government malfeasance are the people who expose it (Manning, Snowden). That is nonsense, We can all just ignore the "rule of law" if that's how its going to be.
> For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government.
let me fix it:
For reporting on a bunch of war criminals sitting in a shipping container in Nevada drone striking brown combatants.
also let's not forget that what we see here is propaganda at its best. Anyone in InfoSec in the West who has in 2012 been outraged by what Snowden revealed, and by what Wikileaks helped publish, has meanwhile condemned the whistleblowers and sided with the terrorists in Washington.
Americans are the most propagandized[1][2] people on the planet, and compared to Russians living under Putin, or Chinese under Xi, ... they're totally oblivious to it.
As Jacques Ellul says[3], well made propaganda is invisible to the person who are the target of it (while usually visible to everyone else).
Assange's team brought evidence that the USA had a kidnapping/assassination plot in case he attempted to flee to Russia. They brought this as obvious evidence that he will not be safe in US custody - they were already willing to kidnap or kill him without a trial. This should prevent his extradition from the UK to the USA, as the UK in principle doesn't extradite prisoners to countries where their safety and UK judicial rights are not guaranteed.
From reading that article it doesn't sound like there was any plot. Mike Pompeo wanted such a thing, but it was never approved. It was hotly contested and never attempted. The article also made it sound like Russia had more of a plot in action to move Assange to Russia.
So there was about as much plot for the US to kidnap Assange as there was to make Mexico to pay for a wall. Hot air from politicians that just evaporates.
We did kill that top Iranian general out of the blue under Pompeo's watch, same time frame. So it's hard to say other assassination plots were just hot air and would never be acted out.
>The lawsuit alleged that the CIA violated their constitutional rights by recording their conversations with Assange and copying their devices after suspicions were raised that Assange was working for the Russian intelligence services.
Recording conversations is not the same as plotting a kidnapping.
> Recording conversations is not the same as plotting a kidnapping.
That is true, but I was replying to OP who said such a thing never happened, when it is clear they did, including the CIA hiring a 3rd party firm to monitor Assange via illeagal methods.
This Yahoo News investigation, based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange — reveals for the first time one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the Trump presidency and exposes new details about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks. It was a campaign spearheaded by Pompeo that bent important legal strictures, potentially jeopardized the Justice Department’s work toward prosecuting Assange, and risked a damaging episode in the United Kingdom, the United States’ closest ally.
The CIA declined to comment. Pompeo did not respond to requests for comment.
Additionally later on accusations of a plot to assaninate Assange became prominent too. These allegations were presented and detailed in court last month by Assanges legal team. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68344106 (ctrl-f assassinate).
Administrations and agencies actively+eagerly seeking methods to deliver revenge to Assange in the form of kidnapping and assassination - this is also not extradition.
I saw that they were considering giving him a plea deal. If the Biden admins give Assange a plea deal similar to Manning it will be a good thing because the crimes were similar and motivated similarly.
This is the ultimate evidence that there is no such thing as a free press;
People are only allowed to report what their masters allow them to. The day you cross a line and in Assange's case, the day you report the crimes commited by The Empire, they crush you.
They are not prosecuting him for that. In main for:
>allegations that in 2010, Assange offered to help Manning, the Army intelligence analyst, crack a password to break into a classified U.S. government network, an act that would have gone beyond journalism.
It's becoming increasingly pointless for the US and UK to litigate this as the time Assange spends in formal custody accrues, mooting any likely potential sentence he'd receive in the US. The WSJ has Assange close to a plea deal that would avoid US custody altogether.
In what sense does Habeas apply here? Habeas isn't a right not to face prosecution, and Assange is incarcerated because he refuses to surrender himself to (two different) courts, not because he hasn't been charged.
The reason his trial hasn't been speedy is that he's refused to allow it to proceed! Which, fair enough, but you can't make a Habeas claim to escape charges when you succeed in stalling proceedings.
Certainly the difference between a normal UK jail and indefinite solitary confinement with possibility for "enhanced interrogation" in the US is not pointless.
Guantanamo bay and the black sites are a disgraceful legacy of US foreign policy but aren’t germane to this discussion.
Assange faces bog standard criminal charges in the US that have proceeded through our standard courts. The extradition is being overseen by 2 separate court systems in 2 separate nations.
The whole point of Guantanamo is that it's not in the USA and therefore the US constitution doesn't apply and they can do what they want.
Which is ridiculous given that Assange was also not in the USA. Somehow US law applies to him when he has nothing to do with the USA, but not to people imprisoned on a US government facility by the US government.
The crimes the US charged occurred in the United States, and the DOJ alleges Assange's role was central to them. It's the same idea as charging the head of an organized crime family overseas with the racketeering offenses the family committed in New Jersey.
If the DOJ cannot prove that Assange's role was fundamental to enabling the offenses, and Assange can prove instead that he merely published information that could have become available to anyone, the case as I understand it fails.
Go read any first hand account of anyone who's spent time in solitary for more than a week and tell me that isn't torture. People go into solitary for years
True. Or, they might shoot him out of a cannon. Or even nuke him.
The guy is in talks right now with the DOJ for a misdemeanor plea, a mercy termination of a prosecution in which the accused appears to have voluntarily served out the sentence pre-trial. If the extradition had gone perfectly smoothly, the C.W. seems to be that he would have been facing single-digit years. Assange is not in fact all that important.
The USA is being asked for assurances that they won't charge him with anything that carries a death sentence. They're not being asked for assurances about nukes or cannons. So the UK judiciary are taking the threat of a death sentence seriously.
These assurance requests are routine and often legally required in countries with no or highly constrained death penalty. They happen in -> US extradition cases all the time.
Given that the US is not a signatory to several international treaties and regularly employs solitary confinement, which is internationally considered as a form of torture, there is a humanitarian argument against the extradition. The desire to comply with the extradition request seems to be more about politics (i.e. maintaining good relationships with the US) than the rule of law.
The treatment of Manning should be sufficient evidence to deny the claim that Assange would receive a fair trial and treatment as a prisoner that is compatible with human rights (i.e. that excludes torture). But given that the judgement argues that even the plans to assassinate him were justified, I doubt this will be given any consideration.
As a broad methodology it isn't torture per say, sure. But the implementation in the vast majority of our justice systems 100% no question is aggregious torture.
It would be interesting to see you or anyone with your opinion about solitary spend even six months in U.S. Federal/state supermax levels of isolation and then emerge to say with a straight face and sound mind that it isn't torture.
Humans are innately social animals, and isolating them against their will from virtually all human contact even for fairly short periods of time can be more destructive to their being than physically mutilating them, even if the scars won't be so visible. Whether such a punishment is justified for some types of extreme criminals or not is another argument that we could debate, but let's at least be honest about describing it for the cruelty it is as a method.
Total supermax-type solitary is one very major reason why even some of the wold's hardest criminals in other countries fight extradition to the U.S at all costs. Should someone like Assange be placed at the same moral level as a mass murdering Mexican narco boss?
I don't know why this is taking so long or why he's fighting it. He will easily win this case citing New York Times Company v. United States as the precedent.
A publisher is allowed to publish state secrets if they aren't the ones who originally obtained them.
They will deny that he is a journalist or publisher. A lot of journalists are on record as agreeing with that - he's "just a blogger". The UK has defined journalism as "working for a mainstream media organisation" (I paraphrase).
The US govt will argue that none of the journalism precedents apply.
As someone who wants to see Assange go free, I continue to believe the best outcome here is for him to be extradited and face trial in the US. I do not think the government's case is strong enough to convict him, and his being acquitted at trial would be by far the best outcome possible here.
The fact that he has been imprisoned in the UK without trial or conviction for the last four years is insane (he has been imprisoned for 5 years but the first year was for a bail violation). This should simply not be possible in a modern liberal democracy.
This is the best possible outcome from the standpoint of the US national security machine -- that he remains imprisoned indefinitely while waiting on a Kafka-esque system to finally grind him to mush, and serves as a dire warning to other journalists who would defy them.
From your question, I take it that you do not believe this is possible. I certainly do. It might be worth further interrogating why you believe that he would not get a fair and impartial trial.
That said, I don't believe that a fair and impartial trail will guarantee an acquittal. But although the national security apparatus is arrayed against him, there's still a judge and a jury and a trial -- this will not be a military tribunal.
The closest comparisons to his situation would be Ellsberg, and less like Manning or Winner, both of whom were employees of the US government. Ellsberg's case was dismissed, and Winer pled guilty; only Manning was convicted at trial.
Being extradited would also be his best chance of being free on bail during trial, although this outcome, despite representing his best chance, is not very likely.
I highly doubt it. The trial would be held in Virginia, the home of the CIA, and the jurors likely made up of members of public that most likely have a loose connection to the CIA, even if only geographically (Alexandria is 40 minute drive to Langley).
One of the conditions for the appeal is that Assange be granted 1st amendments rights, since the USG had argued that it wouldn’t be relevant because he wasn’t a US citizen, as well as assurances that a death penalty could not be applied in any case.
The USG has found the Assange and Snowden cases, and their continuing “limbo” status to be a very effective deterrent to any journalists, especially those who are not US citizens, or whistleblowers, from taking action on USG classified material, regardless of how damning it might be.
That's the beauty of jury trials. Both side (defense and prosecutor) has to agree who will determine guilty/non-guilty. If it was judge, he is beholden to power structures and pressure.
Johnny Depp and Rittenhouse also got a fair trial (at least IMO) despite media frenzy.
Jeffrey Sterling was tried for espionage in 2015 and makes a strong case that jury trials can be partial:
> Julian will face the same court that unfairly convicted me. He will not receive an impartial jury.
> The jury pool from which they will be selecting in the Eastern District of Virginia is made up of individuals who all have some sort of tie — family, their own experience — to the intelligence community or the military apparatus there. And they’re familiar with security clearances. And so that already creates a bias because individuals are not going to want to do anything that may make them look bad, when it becomes time for their security assessment. These individuals know nothing about Julian Assange, other than what our politicians and prosecutors have been saying for years and years — that he’s a terrorist, for the most part.
> Another key aspect is that there are certain constitutional rights that I should have been guaranteed during my trial — facing all of the evidence, and understanding and having all of the prosecution case put before me. Yet that was not the case. Mr Assange will have no guarantees of any constitutional protections, should he be tried in the Eastern District of Virginia.
> I think that court has, time and time again, shown itself to be pro-CIA and pro-US government, and pretty much allowed the government to rule the case and take it in whatever direction they want. And that’s going to be to paint Julian in the worst light, with a favorable jury, and, overall, to go for a conviction.
I don't think Assange compares to Depp or Rittenhouse. Sure, there was media frenzy around the latter two, but the government didn't have the same kind of interest in seeing them punished.
The US has exerted unbelievable pressure to ensure Assange remains a non-threat. Just because they're happy with the current state of affairs doesn't mean Assange has anything to gain by "facing the court and just getting it over with".
The best outcome would be for the UK to uphold its own treaties, refuse to extradite Assange, and allow him to walk free. Anything less would be a travesty and miscarriage of justice.
The idea that the US would try him in the Eastern District of Virginia "Espionage Court", only to throw up their hands in defeat when Assange's lawyers point out that his persecution is illegal, is laughable. If he is extradited, he will rot in a supermax prison, which from first hand testimony[1] is far worse than even Belmarsh.
He will have to be put on trial (by a jury if he so elects) and convicted before he goes to prison; there is no automatic conviction and even if he is refuse bail he will not be in prison.
If the UK refuses to extradite him, then it's a matter of his looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life waiting for the hood and a chopper out. Besides, I have no faith in the UK court' ability to do anything here; they're the ones who have held him without trial or conviction all this time anyway.
I admit that some of my desire here is selfish -- I feel that Assange being tried and acquitted is a greater win for journalism in the US and is worth the risk. Obviously as an individual he does not agree with this (thus his opposition to extradition in the first place).
I do feel that the current status quo is the most favorable in creating the chilling effect that the US national security establishment wants to convey -- Manning and Winner both served their time and are free now; if Assange had been able to foresee what his life would look like now in 2010, he probably would have chosen to turn himself in to the US authorities in the first place, because even were he convicted he'd be free by now.
I believe your hope that he will face anything like a fair trial in the US is misplaced. The conviction the US seeks under the Espionage Act is as good as automatic. There are books and numerous articles covering in minute detail the extraordinary nature of his persecution, detailing the numerous perversions of justice involved.
> The conviction the US seeks under the Espionage Act is as good as automatic
I find this assessment to be unsupported.
Name a single journalist successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act. If you have to go back to the 1920s to find an example, then I think I've made my point. Ellsberg was the only journalist in modern times to even be charged under it, and his charges were dismissed.
He will not be tried as a journalist. The US govt will not recognise his status as a journalist, so none of the legal protections and precedents will be applied.
He's just some foreign civilian who aided Manning in obtaining state secrets and then published those state secrets on his blog.
He doesn't/didn't work for a recognised journalistic organisation, he doesn't belong to a journalist union or professional body, he doesn't hold a qualification in journalism. He's "just a blogger" and so none of the precedents matter.
> He will not be tried as a journalist. The US govt will not recognise his status as a journalist
It's not something that the US govt gets to decide. They can argue it in court, but this sort of finding of fact is a matter for the jury, not for the prosecutor or even the judge to decide. Unless he opts for a bench trial, in which case the judge gets to decide, but that is at his option -- nobody can force him to forgo a jury.
Ellsberg did not receive automatic protections as a journalist either, despite the fact that he was by any definition a journalist (and certainly by your criteria) -- he was charged and tried under the Espionage Act, and only the specific circumstances involved resulted in the case's dismissal.
The government will not put all its eggs in the "he's not a journalist" basket either; they'll offer an array of charges so even if the jury finds that he is a journalist, he will not be completely shielded. Nonetheless I think the odds are in his favor; the government will in the end almost certainly have to show evidence of tangible (not just reputational) harm, and that will open the door to "compelling public interest" arguments based on the particular information brought to light.
I hope you're right. I hope we never have to find out.
In his shoes, given that we already know the US govt had a plan to poison and/or kidnap him, I would not trust that I'd receive a fair trial in the USA.
The US claims that he is "not a journalist" are misdirection tantamount to lies. The correct response is not to defend Assange's status as a journalist, though I understand where that desire comes from, but to call out the lie for what it is.
There is no separate legal system for journalists. The charge is a brand new one, so there is no precedent to ignore. Nobody, journalist or otherwise, has ever been tried under the espionage act for publishing classified material.
>Ellsberg was the only journalist in modern times to even be charged under it, and his charges were dismissed..
His charges were dismissed after the Judge refused to allow him to present a defense. And they were dismissed because the FBI had illegally wiretapped him, not because of anything to do with the case itself.
It's already come out that Assange was constantly wiretapped throughout his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy, including during meetings with his lawyer. Do you think the US would be pushing extradition if they thought a judge would dismiss the case based on that?
> Do you think the US would be pushing extradition if they thought a judge would dismiss the case based on that?
Just because they don't think it will happen does not mean that it will not happen. Nonetheless, you are correct -- Ellsberg was not acquitted, so there was no precedent set, and no guarantee that Assange will be acquitted or have his charges dismissed for similar cause.
All I'm saying is that we don't have a precedent, so it is very far from obvious that the result of a trial would be a conviction. Even the case against Ellsberg was stronger, since he had direct access to the information through his work at RAND.
That is, in fact, an argument brought up by Assange's lawyers in the recent appeal. I know I've seen this brought up elsewhere as well, here is from Craig Murray:
'The point of foreseeability had not been countered. There was no effort made to counter it. In 2010 it could not have been foreseen that publication would bring espionage charges against the publisher. It had never happened before. Encouraging a whistleblower to produce documents was definitely not unprecedented. That was an absurd claim. It was everyday journalistic activity, as witnesses had testified. No witnesses had been produced to say the opposite.'
This is the core of the injustice of what is happening to him. He is currently in prison (in England, not the US) with no charge, no trial, and no conviction. It is a mockery of justice. The US has drifted far from our principles of "speedy trials" over which we fought a war of independence, but at least when it happens in the US there are charges and an indictment.
> I continue to believe the best outcome here is for him to be extradited and face trial in the US.
Lol... They would send him in a secret military prison... That would be the worst outcome possible... He should have went where Snowden wanted to go or where he is by accident
Sure, they'll send him to the same secret military prison where they store the UFOs.
Assange is a public figure; if extradited he will have a trial, and if convicted will go to the same federal prisons that all people convicted for federal crimes go to.
The US has engaged in "extraordinary rendition" (many of which we only know about because of Assange). I'm not defending their record here, but Assange is not a candidate for anything like that -- he is a public figure.
"On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the District Court that much of the information sought by Zubaydah was protected from disclosure by the state
secrets privilege, but the panel majority concluded that the District
Court had erred when it dismissed the case. It believed that the state
secrets privilege did not apply to publicly known information.
...
Here, the
information held by the Ninth Circuit to be nonprivileged would necessarily tend to confirm (or deny) that the CIA maintained a detention
site in Poland. The Government has shown that such information — even if already made public through unofficial sources — could significantly harm national security.
...
Here, the state secrets privilege applies to the existence (or non-
existence) of a CIA facility in Poland, and therefore precludes further
discovery into all three categories of information the Ninth Circuit concluded to be nonprivileged.
...
This case is remanded with instructions to dismiss Zubaydah’s
current application for discovery under §1782. P. 18. "
I think this depends on if he gets a jury trial or bench trial. There are a growing number of federal jurisdictions in the US who really don't care that much about the Constitution or reasonable interpretations thereof. I don't like his odds. I would prefer if they just dropped it or UK refused to send him over here at all. It's a black eye on the 1st amendment, and I've seen enough.
He cannot get a bench trial unless he waives his right to a jury trial and the prosecution agrees.
It is remotely possible that they could amend the charges to include "providing material support for terrorism", in which case they could attempt to try him in military court. That's a worst case / best case situation -- he has the least rights as a defendant under the MCA system, but if the attempt is thwarted by the courts then it would be a huge blow against the government's attempts to circumvent due process.
Came back to answer but the comment got flagged, but I think I remember it being that he chose not to publish RNC info received at roughly the same time as the DNC emails.
That said, I just fact-checked myself and found that the RNC stuff was already public and that was Assange's reason for not publishing. So I'm not sure anything in the comment I was replying to can be substantiated.
>and worked with them to help Trump become president and weaken US democracy by releasing the Clinton emails when he was ordered.
This has become such a tedious point of hate against Assange, and all the more so because it's so badly unfounded, much like the absurdly time-consuming and costly hullabaloo about Trump himself becoming president due to "collusion" with Russia.
I suppose the several dozen million people who voted for Trump in the U.S. just can't be viewed as anything more than brainless peons who couldn't have possibly had any sort of personal motive for doing so? They were all brainwashed? Unlike the enlightened voters for the other side?
That the NY Times and other socially elite media organizations couldn't get over the simple truth of so many people that they ignored in turn ignoring these media organizations' supposedly enlightened pronouncements is one thing. That so many other ordinary progressives can't stand the idea is a bit more absurd.
If you need to sink to the level of promoting conspiracy theories, supporting grotesque miscarriages of legal procedure and actively applauding the suppression of evidence inconvenient to your preferred side of the spectrum, you've lost intellectual credibility.
Nearly 8 years later and you still seriously believe Trump won the 2016 election via Russian interference? Even after all investigations yielded no evidence?
The investigations yielded evidence on most of it, which neither party denies. What was inconclusive was whether or not Trump (and his immediate family) were aware enough to qualify for "conspiracy" or "coordination" charges. That Russia interfered is not disputed. They indicted 34 people.
A problem does not only become a problem the moment you start looking. Is it not for the best if the people of a country are aware of how the people in power use their power? The problem is not that a person decided to leak said emails, it is the fact that these emails were sent in the first place. The US democracy was not weakened through this, this weakness was only made more apparent.
The charges currently listed are not going to age well in history books due to reasons such as:
1. Other parties are seemingly more responsible than Assange in releasing of unredacted cables, and yet these parties are seemingly not subject to repercussions. For example, the journalists who published in a book a password they had been given to decrypt an archive of unredacted cables.[1, 2] The Wikileaks volunteer who without Assange's permission provided unredacted cables to a different journalist.[3] Other parties who published the unredacted cables before Wikileaks did, using the password leaked by the journalists.[1]
2. In Manning's sentencing, a court was told by the US government that no reprisals were known to have occurred to Afghan civilians helping the US as a result of the Afghan War Logs leak.[3] By contrast there are publicly reported instances of Afghans who helped the US during the war being left behind and then beheaded [5] and tortured [6] by the Taliban. Coalition partners (UK, AU, etc) were not at all happy about this Afghanistan exit!
The UK requiring a specialty assurance seemingly forces the US to forfeit additional charges secretly sought to be added, for example, charges for Vault 7 leaks. And even if Assange was extradited to the US, the US has provided the UK with assurance that he'd be sent back over to Australia where "Free Assange" graffiti is everywhere and Assange is possibly the only issue that the Greens and National parties will ever agree upon.[7] Picture Trump and Biden traveling together and lobbying together in the same room for the same cause.
Can anyone more familiar with the case tell me if they already released proof that he was actively collaborating/instructing to obtain illegal material?
224 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadI wonder what would happen if the US gave these assurances then broke them ?
Also, what kind of sentence would Julian face even if he get these assurances ? Could it be anything lower than life in jail ?
I thought that was the case but I think Assange proves that's not as strong as many expected. I think it was reasonable to expect him being extradited 10 years ago, it's surprising he hasn't been yet.
What I do think the US achieved was pressuring the UK into not extraditing him to Sweden. He was charged with crimes there that seemed much more clear cut – not espionage, just a regular case that anyone else would be extradited for. Whether you think that was a conspiracy or not, in isolation it was a justified extradition with no safety concerns, so the US clearly has some sway in preventing it.
The English courts are permitted to take into account whether assurances for previous extraditions have been complied with:
> When considering the adequacy of an assurance in any particular case, the courts should place appropriate weight on any assurance previously obtained in extradition requests from the same requesting country.
http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2016-0191...
...this is of little comfort to Assange, but it does mean that there is an incentive for the country issuing the assurances to comply with them, otherwise their future extradition requests have a greatly increased chance of being denied.
Regarding the death penalty part: extraditions from Germany (and probably all of Europe) would immediately stop in capital cases. Those all rely on American assurances, and the first time it's broken, courts will disregard them for a long time.
With that so large in the rear view mirror, are they really in a position to start defying the US on extraditions? The US will claim this is a special case and Germany will probably go with it in practice.
Also, if a hypothetical US pipeline had been attacked by a large nuclear armed adversary, pretty sure that country would still be on the map...
Doesn't have to be the same country. There is a bit of history in recent times; US went in to Afghanistan to find Osama and Iraq to find WMD. Turned out both were only to be found in Pakistan.
Nuclear weapons in Pakistan isn't anything new (but the US was surprised quite a while back when Pakistan tested a fusion weapon).
The US has a history of just doing what it wants in Europe when it comes to renditions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition [0]). It isn't out of the question that they just grab these people and the judiciary can go sort itself out. There were reports that they were considering assassinating Assange and being done with it. I assume the fact he isn't much of a threat going forward and that his miserable existence is an object lesson in defying the US stood him in good stead against those ideas.
[0] I liked the 2006 resolution that called on that the US to stop doing these things and apologise. The good old fashioned sternly worded letter is one of my favourite parts of politics.
If you're arguing that the German judiciary had influence over the fate of Khaled El-Masri then I'm not sure how the argument is meant to hang together. They seem to have been powerless in that instance. The outcome depended on the CIA's judgement.
The problem is which country? No one seems to know who did it.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1772585710903558200
Assange should be brought back to Australia.
It shows how much Australian politicians and politics kowtow to the US.
It's shameful.
https://www.reuters.com/world/australia-pm-backs-parliament-...
They can extradite him because Australia says that they can. Most of our countries at the highest levels agreed to this. It's called international law and it's messy.
Not an expat. Julian Assange is not a US citizen, not on US ground, does not work for a US company. He can’t be committing “espionage” because he’s not inside; at most he can be committing “reporting” upon US practices.
Same question arose when EU wrote the GDPR: It was a debate at the time that a US company with no activity in EU could be trialled in EU for misdemeanor against EU laws. Apparently it can.
Obviously not. Yet the USA does this routinely. It's effectively what Assange did.
Publishing US state secrets is not a crime in any other country.
I think that is what the trial is to decide.
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
Very true. The UK spying on Belgium and the US spying on Germany come to mind., but that is "business as usual" and no one expects it to change or start going after people involved.
Espionage is expected and deterred as possible but because everyone has spies everyone tends to play nice when they get caught, because they don’t want their own agents mistreated.
Disclosure, on the other hand, threatens the power structure of all players.
People need to understand that the every person is meant to be firmly under the foot of the ruling class, and understanding the mechanisms by which this is accomplished is verboten. The excuses range from “what about the children” to “national security” but the goal is the same - maintaining a healthy imbalance of information and power.
Anything that significantly threatens that imbalance will be met with extreme prejudice. JA overplayed his hand and underestimated the willingness of those involved to absorb casualties in order to stem the proliferation of infrastructure which might work against that treasured monopoly of coercion.
Encryption, distributed systems, anonymous networks, and related technologies are the only effective means to provide a counter to the asymmetric threats that endanger our personal agency.
These technologies are much more important to a free society than any possible harm that they may facilitate. Those harms existed before the internet, and will not go away if they are made slightly more difficult.
The ability to pervasively maintain an efficiently functioning surveillance state requires the internet, and P/A technologies are critical to countering the efficiency of this capability.
Nope. "Nice" only comes if they are exchanged. Otherwise just rot in jail.
Here here, well said.
The act happened on a computer system with-in US jurisdiction.
See also "Three North Korean Military Hackers Indicted in Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes Across the Globe":
> Indictment Expands 2018 Case that Detailed Attack on Sony Pictures and Creation of WannaCry Ransomware by Adding Two New Defendants and Recent Global Schemes to Steal Money and Cryptocurrency from Banks and Businesses while Operating in North Korea, China
* https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-north-korean-military-h...
* https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/17/north-kor...
* https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56103921
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
There are 'official' spies that have diplomatic immunity, and so cannot be charged, but can be expelled. The 'unofficial' spies can certainly be charged:
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/29/fbi-breaks-up-...
When it comes to cyber-y stuff, certainly countries work against each other, but if it's a "group" that is doing the attacks, it may be hard to identify the individuals, but when they are identified, they can be charged:
* https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/china_apt31_charges/
So let's say I google some information about Koran and find a website with Koran, analysis etc. Turns out it's hosted in Saudi Arabia, and the act of me, an atheist, reading Koran is blasphemy, punishable with death.
So should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia, given that the act happened on a computer system with-in Saudi Arabia?
IANAL: AIUI, extradition generally only occurs if the (alleged) action is a crime in both jurisdiction.
> If Country A has no laws against blasphemy, for example, a lack of double criminality could prevent a suspect from being extradited from Country A to face blasphemy charges in another country, i.e. no outbound extradition from Country A, and neither are citizens of Country A eligible for international prisoner transfers from another country having criminally convicted them for blasphemy, i.e. no inbound prisoner transfer to Country A.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_criminality
Blasphemy (against the Quran) is not a crime in (e.g.) the US, so generally you could not be extradited from there for it. Also, there is no the treaty:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia–United_States_rel...
Whereas (say) unauthorized computer access is a crime in many places, and so it could be a mutual-crime eligible for extradition.
Of course if you live in Country A and are charged in Country B which has no treaty with A, you could potentially (IANAL) be arrested in Country C—which does have a treaty with B—if you were travelling there.
I think it's a miscarriage of justice that Assange is just sitting in jail. At the same time, his defenders don't admit that he solicited and provided technical assistance to Americans who expressed interest in stealing secrets. Plus he's almost certainly a creep. The condom-removal allegations are very likely true. While not relevant to his crimes, this makes him much less sympathetic.
Edit: I see the law is catching up there: https://apnews.com/article/health-crime-california-gavin-new...
Saying Assange "shared" secrets seems incorrect. Manning shared secrets with Assange so that Assange could publish them.
Punishing Manning surely scared those considering sharing secrets. Punishing Assange would frighten those considering publishing secrets, something the US has generally been unable to freely do.
I say that, but my post also could use clarification. The US has typically been unable to scare publishers of documents, the last time they really tried was with the Pentagon Papers and the Supreme Court ruled they couldn't punish publishers.
This isn't as crazy as it sounds because the Roman Empire had provinces which were technically "independent" monarchies aligned with Rome. Most famously, Egypt under Cleopatra and Judea under Herod.
You're going to have to write a book or two of argumentation, because you seem like you're drawing parallels between intersecting lines
Maybe we really do need a little dance with authoritarianism here to remind people what that is.
Even its allies aren't free of government interference from the US.
But US allies are not "free" in the sense that they can't do something that the US really doesn't like. Japan's government, for example, would not be trying to repeal its pacifist constitution unless they had the US's blessing to re-militarize.
Basically, there are 2 different senses in which a country can be called "free". But even in the individual liberty sense, a libertarian (either of the Ron Paul or Noam Chomsky variants) would not consider the US or any of its allies to be free and acting like they are libertarian countries is a good way to become a martyr.
Arguably, this is bullshit. The UK might be dangerously friendly with the US on multiple fronts, but e.g. France has refused to extradite Polanski forever, refuses to hand over control of their nukes to NATO, and pursues an independent but aligned foreign policy to the US.
While US would prosecute him if they could , they have not tried anywhere as hard to extradite him like they are doing with Assange .
Assange is not a UK citizen , UK has some of the weirdest privacy and human rights laws they are not fully part of EHCR anymore and actively trying to deport refugees to Rwanda , France is hardly in the same category as UK .
I wouldn’t characterize UK as country with strong human rights they are pretty exploitative (see how they treated windrush generation or the Gurkhas )
Crimes that directly threaten the sovereign are always the most serious crimes especially if they involve waging war against it or undermining its war effort. This is a constant throughout all societies. The next most serious class of crimes would be those that undermine the state's control of the financial system which is critical to its power. That's also why the US government has thrown the book at those who trespassed in the Capitol as part of a comically incompetent attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Likewise, intentional tax evasion is going to get the book thrown at you. When the state feels genuinely threatened, "human rights" and "constitutional rights" are irrelevant and will be "interpreted" to allow whatever the state wishes to do.
Really? It doesn't seem that way at all to me, it seems only few rioters have been given a slap on the wrist, none of the key organizers are in jail, neither is head of the moment, many of them who attempted to overthrow the government are serving in congress even now. The leader is the presumptive nominee of a major political party and openly talks about being a dictator when elected. Not one have been disqualified under 14th amendment and does not look at all likely before the election.
The extremely slow speed and ineptitude at which the system has moved so far is just astonishing and is completely counter to your point on Government moves faster, harder when its survival is at stake, compare that to say how quickly Brazil has reacted to a similar attempt by Jair Bolsonaro.
> far more serious a crime than (allegedly) raping a child because
It is sad that we have come far to these days characterize actions by foreign reporters not subject to any U.S. law whatsoever and who merely published and did not leak themselves damning evidence of atrocities and war crimes committed in violation of Geneva convention of which US is a signatory as crimes.
Also I cannot but help notice that you feel need to say allegedly about an horrific incident in which no one disputes the facts, but afford no such benefit of doubt to Assange.
This gives the spy protection as both sides are spying on each other so usually what happens is some snarky comment/strongly worded letter and expulsion of a few spies back to their home country from both sides.
In the worst case someone goes to prison but usually in response the other side also finds some spies to put into prison too as "revenge".
Also whatever information the spies manage to get in general is not released to the public.
Assange has building size graffiti murals in Moscow.
Wake me up when the court renders decision that he is.
And even if he is it should have no relation to this particular case.
Word to Russia: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:3-5, English Standard Version.)
I mean, look, the US should be judged for how it upholds its own values, and it does so less than perfectly. It justly deserves condemnation for when and where it falls short of its own stated values. But Russia... does Russia really want countries to be judged by freedom of speech?
Paragraph 210 of the judgment argues why the US's kidnapping/assassination plot is not a valid ground for refusing the extradition:
> [...] On the face of the allegations (on the evidence before the judge and the fresh evidence) the contemplation of extreme measures against the applicant (whether poisoning for example or rendition) were a response to the fear that the applicant might flee to Russia. The short answer to this, is that the rationale for such conduct is removed if the applicant is extradited. Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away.
For the crime of reporting information that embarrassed the US government.
I think the guy is getting fucked over in this unfairly, but let's not pretend he has released information to a reasonable standard.
> "Some of the new cables have reportedly not been redacted and show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan," it said in a statement. "While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected."
* https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publ...
> The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication.
> The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros ; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG.
* https://archive.is/XPuki / https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB1000142405274870342860457...
> “We are deeply concerned that WikiLeaks decided to make public the names of diplomatic sources who may face reprisals by oppressive governments,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an independent nonprofit organization.
* https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wiki...
Whether reprisals then occurred I do not know.
> "We fear the names could create new targets", Nader Nadery, the president of the AIHRC, told the French news agency AFP.
> The WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, replied to the letter by asking the groups concerned to help WikiLeaks redact the names. He also threatened to expose Amnesty if it refused to provide staff to help with the task, according to the Wall Street Journal.
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-wa...
Assange "threatened to expose Amnesty" International?
To me it seems that Assange was not pursuing some noble cause, but was on some kind of vendetta, given all the (collateral?) damage he was causing to others.
(Generally I knew of him, given he often made headlines, but have never really dug into the details.)
He’s just another biased media source with an agenda.
Which? Collateral Murder didn't depict war crimes.
The treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison is a war crime. The raping of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is a war crime. The subsequent killing of her and her family is a war crime. The Haditha massacre is a war crime. And these are just _some_ of the most well-known ones.
Also, Collateral Murder is not any less gruesome, just because it isn't "terrible enough to be a war crime". That is absurd and dangerous thinking. In the very least, the actions shown, especially the attack on the van, can, without a doubt, be classified as murder. Murder is a crime, and the people who commit crimes should be held accountable for them.
He then got a team of journalists together to sift through the documents to make sure things were properly disclosed. Some Guardian journalists then published the encryption keys in a book.
Snowden's mistake was revealing himself. He should've done what the Panama Papers leaker did.
After the keys had already leaked, there was a disagreement whether Wikileaks should continue their plan of slowly publishing things as they went through them or dump everything since it was already in the public.
But before "the Journalists" leaked the keys, Assange was in charge of a massive undertaking to sort through the documents for responsible disclosure.
US spies that knew the risks of their profession.
What about their sources?
Multiple human rights organizations criticized the underacted release of information:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756
https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off...
See also the "Invade The Hague Act": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
When I served in Afghanistan the locals would tip us off about ambushes or IEDs. Should those people be killed for warning us and potentially saving my life?
Stated otherwise, if US Gov could be relied on to honor it's ethical obligations to taxpayers and release the entirety of info that it ought, I argue that fewer unqualified people would feel responsibility to take that upon themselves.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civili...
At the very least, I see him now as a warning to others that powerful state actors are happy to use free-information advocates as pawns in their agenda to destabilize their opponents.
It's also a national pastime to crap on the government. Are you not aware that thousands of reporters and millions of people embarrass the US government every day?
The release of "Collateral Murder" damaged public opinion of the US invasion of Iraq and US foreign policy in general. If journalists embarrass the US government by telling them their nose looks funny, Assange embarrassed them by pulling their pants down at the half time show at the Superbowl.
sadly Assange was not a "funny man" and totally lacked the gift of humor. So the only tool he had was his rightousness coupled with his will to embarrass.
Sadly for him he is a self obsessed and attention seeking cretin. Would he have had any charisma or the gift of humor the outrage of what was done against him would be a lot bigger. One can only dream of the damage that could have been done against these criminals in the US and Britain (and the EU) by somebody who knows how to package these things into better. The raggedy Wikileaks outlet was never going to be capable of this. A shame because anyone who believes in civil rights all over the world deserves better.
Embarrassing leaks have happened many times (pentagon papers*, watergate, Iran–Contra affair among others) and the leakers didn't go to jail
Even worse his ego took over and wikileaks became the julian assange show; he reminded me of every cult leader I've ever seen. He's now experiencing FAFO for his arrogance.
*Though the gov't tried to charge Ellsberg with stealing/releasing classified data, the fact that he was highly selective is what saved him from jail time.
I care for their safety as much as they care for my privacy.
Could also be the guy behind having US troops guard the opium fields of pedophiles during a opioid epidemic
Leaking government misdeeds is whistle-blowing and has legal and moral justifications (and when wikileaks first arrived on the scene I was 100% supportive of it). Leaking troves of generic government data that's unrelated to any misdeeds, is a crime. Assange, for a host of reasons, decided to do the latter and is now in a FAFO situation.
Nobody went to jail. The only people who go to jail for government malfeasance are the people who expose it (Manning, Snowden). That is nonsense, We can all just ignore the "rule of law" if that's how its going to be.
let me fix it:
For reporting on a bunch of war criminals sitting in a shipping container in Nevada drone striking brown combatants.
also let's not forget that what we see here is propaganda at its best. Anyone in InfoSec in the West who has in 2012 been outraged by what Snowden revealed, and by what Wikileaks helped publish, has meanwhile condemned the whistleblowers and sided with the terrorists in Washington.
Americans are the most propagandized[1][2] people on the planet, and compared to Russians living under Putin, or Chinese under Xi, ... they're totally oblivious to it.
As Jacques Ellul says[3], well made propaganda is invisible to the person who are the target of it (while usually visible to everyone else).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
[3] https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512
From reading that article it doesn't sound like there was any plot. Mike Pompeo wanted such a thing, but it was never approved. It was hotly contested and never attempted. The article also made it sound like Russia had more of a plot in action to move Assange to Russia.
So there was about as much plot for the US to kidnap Assange as there was to make Mexico to pay for a wall. Hot air from politicians that just evaporates.
>The lawsuit alleged that the CIA violated their constitutional rights by recording their conversations with Assange and copying their devices after suspicions were raised that Assange was working for the Russian intelligence services.
Recording conversations is not the same as plotting a kidnapping.
That is true, but I was replying to OP who said such a thing never happened, when it is clear they did, including the CIA hiring a 3rd party firm to monitor Assange via illeagal methods.
Revisiting your point, this is the original source of the kidnapping allegations: https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london...
This Yahoo News investigation, based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange — reveals for the first time one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the Trump presidency and exposes new details about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks. It was a campaign spearheaded by Pompeo that bent important legal strictures, potentially jeopardized the Justice Department’s work toward prosecuting Assange, and risked a damaging episode in the United Kingdom, the United States’ closest ally.
The CIA declined to comment. Pompeo did not respond to requests for comment.
Additionally later on accusations of a plot to assaninate Assange became prominent too. These allegations were presented and detailed in court last month by Assanges legal team. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68344106 (ctrl-f assassinate).
Disgusting.
Extradition is not a kidnapping plot.
Administrations and agencies actively+eagerly seeking methods to deliver revenge to Assange in the form of kidnapping and assassination - this is also not extradition.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=plot+to+kidnap+assange
This is the ultimate evidence that there is no such thing as a free press; People are only allowed to report what their masters allow them to. The day you cross a line and in Assange's case, the day you report the crimes commited by The Empire, they crush you.
US generally doesn't persecute it's citizens for reporting. See Pentagon papers.
Assange is not US citizen. Guantanamo bay detainees weren't US citizens. They are free targets.
>allegations that in 2010, Assange offered to help Manning, the Army intelligence analyst, crack a password to break into a classified U.S. government network, an act that would have gone beyond journalism.
People report crimes committed by the empire all the time without difficulties. Here's a wikipedia with some for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
Assange faces bog standard criminal charges in the US that have proceeded through our standard courts. The extradition is being overseen by 2 separate court systems in 2 separate nations.
Which is ridiculous given that Assange was also not in the USA. Somehow US law applies to him when he has nothing to do with the USA, but not to people imprisoned on a US government facility by the US government.
If the DOJ cannot prove that Assange's role was fundamental to enabling the offenses, and Assange can prove instead that he merely published information that could have become available to anyone, the case as I understand it fails.
Funny enough it’s likely a tactic that works! He’s likely to end up not doing any US time!
The guy is in talks right now with the DOJ for a misdemeanor plea, a mercy termination of a prosecution in which the accused appears to have voluntarily served out the sentence pre-trial. If the extradition had gone perfectly smoothly, the C.W. seems to be that he would have been facing single-digit years. Assange is not in fact all that important.
The treatment of Manning should be sufficient evidence to deny the claim that Assange would receive a fair trial and treatment as a prisoner that is compatible with human rights (i.e. that excludes torture). But given that the judgement argues that even the plans to assassinate him were justified, I doubt this will be given any consideration.
Digestible source: last week tonight: https://youtu.be/_uSZwErdH3I?si=DfHkVDbGegVt06tJ
More detailed source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/30/hellhole
Humans are innately social animals, and isolating them against their will from virtually all human contact even for fairly short periods of time can be more destructive to their being than physically mutilating them, even if the scars won't be so visible. Whether such a punishment is justified for some types of extreme criminals or not is another argument that we could debate, but let's at least be honest about describing it for the cruelty it is as a method.
Total supermax-type solitary is one very major reason why even some of the wold's hardest criminals in other countries fight extradition to the U.S at all costs. Should someone like Assange be placed at the same moral level as a mass murdering Mexican narco boss?
A publisher is allowed to publish state secrets if they aren't the ones who originally obtained them.
The US govt will argue that none of the journalism precedents apply.
You can't get any more naive than that :)
The fact that he has been imprisoned in the UK without trial or conviction for the last four years is insane (he has been imprisoned for 5 years but the first year was for a bail violation). This should simply not be possible in a modern liberal democracy.
This is the best possible outcome from the standpoint of the US national security machine -- that he remains imprisoned indefinitely while waiting on a Kafka-esque system to finally grind him to mush, and serves as a dire warning to other journalists who would defy them.
That said, I don't believe that a fair and impartial trail will guarantee an acquittal. But although the national security apparatus is arrayed against him, there's still a judge and a jury and a trial -- this will not be a military tribunal.
The closest comparisons to his situation would be Ellsberg, and less like Manning or Winner, both of whom were employees of the US government. Ellsberg's case was dismissed, and Winer pled guilty; only Manning was convicted at trial.
Being extradited would also be his best chance of being free on bail during trial, although this outcome, despite representing his best chance, is not very likely.
One of the conditions for the appeal is that Assange be granted 1st amendments rights, since the USG had argued that it wouldn’t be relevant because he wasn’t a US citizen, as well as assurances that a death penalty could not be applied in any case.
The USG has found the Assange and Snowden cases, and their continuing “limbo” status to be a very effective deterrent to any journalists, especially those who are not US citizens, or whistleblowers, from taking action on USG classified material, regardless of how damning it might be.
That's the beauty of jury trials. Both side (defense and prosecutor) has to agree who will determine guilty/non-guilty. If it was judge, he is beholden to power structures and pressure.
Johnny Depp and Rittenhouse also got a fair trial (at least IMO) despite media frenzy.
> Julian will face the same court that unfairly convicted me. He will not receive an impartial jury.
> The jury pool from which they will be selecting in the Eastern District of Virginia is made up of individuals who all have some sort of tie — family, their own experience — to the intelligence community or the military apparatus there. And they’re familiar with security clearances. And so that already creates a bias because individuals are not going to want to do anything that may make them look bad, when it becomes time for their security assessment. These individuals know nothing about Julian Assange, other than what our politicians and prosecutors have been saying for years and years — that he’s a terrorist, for the most part.
> Another key aspect is that there are certain constitutional rights that I should have been guaranteed during my trial — facing all of the evidence, and understanding and having all of the prosecution case put before me. Yet that was not the case. Mr Assange will have no guarantees of any constitutional protections, should he be tried in the Eastern District of Virginia.
> I think that court has, time and time again, shown itself to be pro-CIA and pro-US government, and pretty much allowed the government to rule the case and take it in whatever direction they want. And that’s going to be to paint Julian in the worst light, with a favorable jury, and, overall, to go for a conviction.
https://jacobin.com/2021/04/cia-whistleblower-julian-assange...
I don't think Assange compares to Depp or Rittenhouse. Sure, there was media frenzy around the latter two, but the government didn't have the same kind of interest in seeing them punished.
The best outcome would be for the UK to uphold its own treaties, refuse to extradite Assange, and allow him to walk free. Anything less would be a travesty and miscarriage of justice.
The idea that the US would try him in the Eastern District of Virginia "Espionage Court", only to throw up their hands in defeat when Assange's lawyers point out that his persecution is illegal, is laughable. If he is extradited, he will rot in a supermax prison, which from first hand testimony[1] is far worse than even Belmarsh.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-last-days-of-julian-assan...
If the UK refuses to extradite him, then it's a matter of his looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life waiting for the hood and a chopper out. Besides, I have no faith in the UK court' ability to do anything here; they're the ones who have held him without trial or conviction all this time anyway.
I admit that some of my desire here is selfish -- I feel that Assange being tried and acquitted is a greater win for journalism in the US and is worth the risk. Obviously as an individual he does not agree with this (thus his opposition to extradition in the first place).
I do feel that the current status quo is the most favorable in creating the chilling effect that the US national security establishment wants to convey -- Manning and Winner both served their time and are free now; if Assange had been able to foresee what his life would look like now in 2010, he probably would have chosen to turn himself in to the US authorities in the first place, because even were he convicted he'd be free by now.
I find this assessment to be unsupported.
Name a single journalist successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act. If you have to go back to the 1920s to find an example, then I think I've made my point. Ellsberg was the only journalist in modern times to even be charged under it, and his charges were dismissed.
He's just some foreign civilian who aided Manning in obtaining state secrets and then published those state secrets on his blog.
He doesn't/didn't work for a recognised journalistic organisation, he doesn't belong to a journalist union or professional body, he doesn't hold a qualification in journalism. He's "just a blogger" and so none of the precedents matter.
It's not something that the US govt gets to decide. They can argue it in court, but this sort of finding of fact is a matter for the jury, not for the prosecutor or even the judge to decide. Unless he opts for a bench trial, in which case the judge gets to decide, but that is at his option -- nobody can force him to forgo a jury.
Ellsberg did not receive automatic protections as a journalist either, despite the fact that he was by any definition a journalist (and certainly by your criteria) -- he was charged and tried under the Espionage Act, and only the specific circumstances involved resulted in the case's dismissal.
The government will not put all its eggs in the "he's not a journalist" basket either; they'll offer an array of charges so even if the jury finds that he is a journalist, he will not be completely shielded. Nonetheless I think the odds are in his favor; the government will in the end almost certainly have to show evidence of tangible (not just reputational) harm, and that will open the door to "compelling public interest" arguments based on the particular information brought to light.
In his shoes, given that we already know the US govt had a plan to poison and/or kidnap him, I would not trust that I'd receive a fair trial in the USA.
There is no separate legal system for journalists. The charge is a brand new one, so there is no precedent to ignore. Nobody, journalist or otherwise, has ever been tried under the espionage act for publishing classified material.
His charges were dismissed after the Judge refused to allow him to present a defense. And they were dismissed because the FBI had illegally wiretapped him, not because of anything to do with the case itself.
It's already come out that Assange was constantly wiretapped throughout his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy, including during meetings with his lawyer. Do you think the US would be pushing extradition if they thought a judge would dismiss the case based on that?
Just because they don't think it will happen does not mean that it will not happen. Nonetheless, you are correct -- Ellsberg was not acquitted, so there was no precedent set, and no guarantee that Assange will be acquitted or have his charges dismissed for similar cause.
All I'm saying is that we don't have a precedent, so it is very far from obvious that the result of a trial would be a conviction. Even the case against Ellsberg was stronger, since he had direct access to the information through his work at RAND.
'The point of foreseeability had not been countered. There was no effort made to counter it. In 2010 it could not have been foreseen that publication would bring espionage charges against the publisher. It had never happened before. Encouraging a whistleblower to produce documents was definitely not unprecedented. That was an absurd claim. It was everyday journalistic activity, as witnesses had testified. No witnesses had been produced to say the opposite.'
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/02/assange-fina...
And where is he now?
Lol... They would send him in a secret military prison... That would be the worst outcome possible... He should have went where Snowden wanted to go or where he is by accident
Assange is a public figure; if extradited he will have a trial, and if convicted will go to the same federal prisons that all people convicted for federal crimes go to.
The US has engaged in "extraordinary rendition" (many of which we only know about because of Assange). I'm not defending their record here, but Assange is not a candidate for anything like that -- he is a public figure.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-827_i426.pdf
"On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the District Court that much of the information sought by Zubaydah was protected from disclosure by the state secrets privilege, but the panel majority concluded that the District Court had erred when it dismissed the case. It believed that the state secrets privilege did not apply to publicly known information.
...
Here, the information held by the Ninth Circuit to be nonprivileged would necessarily tend to confirm (or deny) that the CIA maintained a detention site in Poland. The Government has shown that such information — even if already made public through unofficial sources — could significantly harm national security.
...
Here, the state secrets privilege applies to the existence (or non- existence) of a CIA facility in Poland, and therefore precludes further discovery into all three categories of information the Ninth Circuit concluded to be nonprivileged.
...
This case is remanded with instructions to dismiss Zubaydah’s current application for discovery under §1782. P. 18. "
It is remotely possible that they could amend the charges to include "providing material support for terrorism", in which case they could attempt to try him in military court. That's a worst case / best case situation -- he has the least rights as a defendant under the MCA system, but if the attempt is thwarted by the courts then it would be a huge blow against the government's attempts to circumvent due process.
wow, you really trust American institutions. but most of the people doesn't and for good reasons.
No one with half a brain believes that. Please try harder.
- Being a verified Russian asset
- Working with Russia to specifically help elect Trump to the office of president
- Specifically seeking to weaken US democracy
Going to need sources and supporting evidence proportionate to the extent of your claims.
That said, I just fact-checked myself and found that the RNC stuff was already public and that was Assange's reason for not publishing. So I'm not sure anything in the comment I was replying to can be substantiated.
This has become such a tedious point of hate against Assange, and all the more so because it's so badly unfounded, much like the absurdly time-consuming and costly hullabaloo about Trump himself becoming president due to "collusion" with Russia. I suppose the several dozen million people who voted for Trump in the U.S. just can't be viewed as anything more than brainless peons who couldn't have possibly had any sort of personal motive for doing so? They were all brainwashed? Unlike the enlightened voters for the other side?
That the NY Times and other socially elite media organizations couldn't get over the simple truth of so many people that they ignored in turn ignoring these media organizations' supposedly enlightened pronouncements is one thing. That so many other ordinary progressives can't stand the idea is a bit more absurd.
If you need to sink to the level of promoting conspiracy theories, supporting grotesque miscarriages of legal procedure and actively applauding the suppression of evidence inconvenient to your preferred side of the spectrum, you've lost intellectual credibility.
1. Other parties are seemingly more responsible than Assange in releasing of unredacted cables, and yet these parties are seemingly not subject to repercussions. For example, the journalists who published in a book a password they had been given to decrypt an archive of unredacted cables.[1, 2] The Wikileaks volunteer who without Assange's permission provided unredacted cables to a different journalist.[3] Other parties who published the unredacted cables before Wikileaks did, using the password leaked by the journalists.[1]
2. In Manning's sentencing, a court was told by the US government that no reprisals were known to have occurred to Afghan civilians helping the US as a result of the Afghan War Logs leak.[3] By contrast there are publicly reported instances of Afghans who helped the US during the war being left behind and then beheaded [5] and tortured [6] by the Taliban. Coalition partners (UK, AU, etc) were not at all happy about this Afghanistan exit!
The UK requiring a specialty assurance seemingly forces the US to forfeit additional charges secretly sought to be added, for example, charges for Vault 7 leaks. And even if Assange was extradited to the US, the US has provided the UK with assurance that he'd be sent back over to Australia where "Free Assange" graffiti is everywhere and Assange is possibly the only issue that the Greens and National parties will ever agree upon.[7] Picture Trump and Biden traveling together and lobbying together in the same room for the same cause.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cable...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks:_Inside_Julian_Assan...
[3] https://www.wired.com/2011/09/unauthorized-assange-memoir/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/bradley-mannin...
[5] https://nypost.com/2021/07/24/translator-who-worked-for-us-a...
[6] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-interpreter-taliban...
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/05/austr...