@CalamityJane,
CalamityJane wrote:
On what grounds, wandel? What U.S. laws has Assagne broken worth prosecuting?
Walter knows more about law than I do, CJ. One news item posted on this thread mentioned that evidence that Assange actively encouraged Bradley Manning to leak information would make a difference. I am curious about what Walter can tell us regarding international agreements.
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:
........ He was spirited to the United States for trial, and his conviction in a United States court was upheld by the United States Supreme Court despite Mexican protests over what it viewed as violations of Mexican sovereignty and international law. Mexico's indignation over the United States action ....
That's very good news - so presumably now Mexico will take back all its citizens currently illegally residing under US jurisdiction?!
@High Seas,
Or the USA will take out all its illegals; the CIA performing illegal activities the world over and the troops the USA has in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Is it that too much fluoride is added to your water, the CIA testing new drugs/chemicals on its citizens. Just what causes this hyper abundance of hypocrisy.
There is nothing gained by prosecuting Assange. As pointed out, many are ready to step up in his place (perhaps for the better). This is spinning of wheels, no traction, but lots of friction.
I think whistle-blowing on criminal acts should be protected, but simply leaking out classified (or unclassified) private documents should not be held in the same light. I certainly don't think WL (or a media outlet) is either of the above. Beyond legal repercussion doesn't mean they are beyond reproach.
I'm interested in what 2nd gen orgs will do different in their methods/standards or how (if at all) their mission statement will be communicated.
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@JTT,
Quote:Or the USA will take out all its illegals; the CIA performing illegal activities the world over and the troops the USA has in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That court you are running in your bedroom must be very busy indeed finding the CIA and the US guilty of all types of crimes.
@Rockhead,
Rockhead wrote:
wikileaks needs to do something worthy of discussion.
the air is thick with much ado about nothing...
If WL starts to fade in the headlines, then it's time for another dump.
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@wandeljw,
Well, I'm not sure about the legal (sic!) possibilities.
But there might be some secret agreements as we've read in .... oooops, sorry.
This is a 'possitive' quote, via the Council on Foreign Relations:
Quote:The legal Case against WikiLeaks
[...]
Assange is in detention in London on a warrant from the Swedish government on sexual charges brought by two women. Does that Swedish warrant have precedence over anything the United States might do? How does that work legally?
The Swedish warrant doesn't necessarily have precedence. The U.S. government must be considering that if it brings charges against Assange--and I expect that they will do so, if they have not, in fact, already secured sealed indictments--it should ask for Assange's extradition from the UK or wait for him to be extradited to Sweden and then request his extradition from Sweden. And they are certainly looking at the technical aspects of the two extradition agreements between the UK and Sweden and then considering the political and legal atmosphere in both places.
With respect to the UK, we have a new and well-functioning extradition treaty that was negotiated just a few years ago between the United States and the UK, and a very good extradition relationship government to government. In general, I might expect that the U.S. government would try to have him extradited from the UK rather than from Sweden, and the UK does have some discretion to extradite him to the United States rather than to Sweden. On the other hand, certainly Assange's lawyers would mount a very vigorous opposition in either case, in London in particular. Past U.S. extradition requests for criminals from the UK have faced vigorous opposition, and a number of people have successfully resisted that through appeals through the House of Lords and ultimately all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. We can anticipate lengthy litigation.
@failures art,
Agreed - if it's a bluff on their part, now is the time to call it.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:This may alarm you, but on several occassions on this thread you have made points I was prepared to make.
Keep up the good work.
Don't let it go to your head. That is JTT's job.
As an aside, one very interesting thing I've seen about this topic (at least in the USA) is that the divide on many opinions regarding this have not neatly fallen upon political lines.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of congruency here. Isn't that interesting?
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@failures art,
Quote:but simply leaking out classified (or unclassified) private documents should not be held in the same light.
Then why does the US government do it when it suits their purposes. Why does it leak information that directly has caused and continues to cause the deaths of innocents? Why does it move people to countries where they can be tortured?
@High Seas,
High Seas wrote:
Agreed - if it's a bluff on their part, now is the time to call it.
I don't think they are bluffing one bit. I 100% believe they have plenty more. It may lack as much potency now though since other countries have been given advance warning. Then again, who knows?
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@Walter Hinteler,
I'm most astonished that someone with a legal background can say such:
John B. Bellinger III, Adjunct Senior Fellow for International and National Security Law wrote:Past U.S. extradition requests for criminals from the UK ...
Assange isn't convicted not even prosecuted.
Seems, you're easily a
criminal in the USA. At least a lot easier than under any other legal system I know.
@failures art,
That's my very point - let's see the cards in the hole, as they say in poker. Then and only then decide on a legal move, if any is advisable.
@Walter Hinteler,
Thanks, Walter! The legal issue becomes more complex when international agreements are taken into consideration.
@wandeljw,
Bellinger is one of those beati pauperes spiritu mentioned in Walter's signature line - hardly a legal authority on any subject.
I think there is two branch discussions going on here in the thread.
1) A conversation on WL in terms of increased public access to otherwise restricted materials. A discussion on the potential benefit or harm of release both general and specific. A conversation on the balance of public and private and achieving balance in government transparency (and perhaps corporate transparency as well).
2) A legal discussion on protections and responsibilities for all levels of participants: Whistle-blowers, leakers, dissemination, media platforms.
I feel like most of the debate is on the former, with some speculation on the latter.
For those interested, here is a change.org petition to take pressure off of WL. It seems to be written fairly neutral of whether you approve or disapprove and speaks more to the restraint of trying to obstruct WL or censor the internet.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/stop_the_crackdown_on_wikileaks
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In order for the US to prosecute Assange for any crime it will need to extradite him from whatever country has custody of him or snatch him and bring him to American soil. There is virtually no chance of the latter happening.
This would be a much easier task if he was an American who committed the alleged crime on US soil, but that he is not and did not doesn't make it impossible.
The US can claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over Assange, but that claim will need to be recognized by the country holding him. It happens and could happen with Assange.
Once he is in US custody he can be prosecuted in a US court. I'm sure that his defense team will raise jurisdictional arguments, but if a judge or panel of judges decides the US has jurisdiction, it will. Again, this happens and it could with Assange.
One of the ways to make extradition easier would be to charge Assange with conspiracy. Under our laws, and the laws of many nations, no matter where a conspirator is located they can be held responsible for the illegal actions of the native citizens with whom they conspired. In this case the co-conspirator is Pvt Manning.
As to whether or not he has committed a crime, that will, obviously, be up to a jury to decide should he stand trial in the US. The obvious law under which to charge him is the Espionage Act, but there are probably other statutes which can be invoked. That is what the DOJ team is looking into right now.
It is just silly to declare that he cannot be prosecuted because he has not broken any law. First of all, many an innocent man or woman have been prosecuted and secondly one's personal assessment of whether or not he has broken a law is entirely irrelevant to DOJ actions.
The key question is whether or not a country like the UK, Sweden or Australia will turn him over to the US.
I suspect that the much maligned (at least in this forum) effort by the Australian government to determine if Assange has violated any Australian laws is part of developing a course of action to be taken if the US seeks extradition of Assange from Australia. If Australia is prepared to prosecute Assange for crimes similar to what the US would charge him with, it makes it politically easier for them to refuse the US request for extradition. A moot point unless he somehow makes it back to Australia.
@wandeljw,
I don't think that it's complex.
It is, however, complex, if the USA really wants him on trial in the USA.
(However, creating a new law and then prosecuting him doesn't work in any legal system ... outside the USA. Neither the UK nor Sweden could [sic!] allow Assange's extradition then:
nulla poena sine lege.)
@Finn dAbuzz,
That's a convincing argument you've made that the USA is a rogue state, Finn, that it can act with impunity simply because it has the might and the predilection, as the historical record shows, to perform illegalities of all manner.
Quote:A moot point unless he somehow makes it back to Australia.
Yes, who knows what illegal acts the USA can pull off in international territory. It certainly is adept in performing all manner of illegality within the territories of numerous countries.
@Walter Hinteler,
Quote:Neither the UK nor Sweden could [sic!] allow Assange's extradition then: nulla poena sine lege.)
If the US want him as they wanted the Mexican doctor who had help torture a DEA agency to death sooner of later US agencies will find a way to seized him and bring him to the US. Hell using a woman to lure him into such a situation seems more then doable.
US courts for the most part do not care in what manner some one in brought in front of them.
Somehow, in any case I question how must the US government really wish to have this hot potato.
