I can’t properly express the irony involved in the Trump administration looking to charge Assange (who some claims is a Russian actor, which in itself would put him and Trump on the same team) when the ex-president is now charged with the same line of indictments for keeping classified docs as bathroom reading material…
Not quite. The big thing they have on Assange is that he helped Chelsea Manning break into US databases, which is not only a computer crime but espionage. In any case, according to the WSJ prosecutors see diminishing odds that he would serve much more time even if he were convicted in the US.
Well the threat of prosecution sure has made his life hell for a long time.
Assange is not your hero
Doesn’t matter. Human rights are inalienable.
Assange put himself in his situation, it wasn’t done to him. He put himself in isolation rather than answer a rape investigation and once he jumped bail ended up where he is today. He fought the law and the law won. He has years of his life to show for it. Any suffering he had was his own doing.
None of that is relevant to me. Even leaving aside the question of whether what he did was journalism or espionage, he still should not be subject to extradition to a country with a track record of punishment that amounts to torture.
Given that all large nations spy on one another it’s a bit ridiculous to start extraditing each others’ spies, nor does the US try to. This is probably motivated by the whistleblowing.
The law was being followed. A sealed indictment from a grand jury awaits Assange in the US. And it’s pretty common for any country to seek extradition in such a case. You simply don’t like that a case was made in the first place.
>Any suffering he had was his own doing.
no. this is a problem of government overreach.
So now it’s over reach to prosecute or even investigate people who brake the law.
Whistleblowers should not be prosecuted.
Unless you’re okay with war crimes done by your precious United States?
He was put in jail for jumping bail. Does he have the right to do that?.
yes, he is.
Yeah not exactly, but both in the same theme of possessing in one way or another docs they’re not supposed to have.
I think you could liken it to robbing a bank to obtain money versus scamming a bunch of elderly people to obtain money. Both give you the same end result but each crime is treated differently.
Sounds to me like they don’t really have anything on him but if they can get him to admit something they won’t look so much like the bags of shit they really are.
If they are serious about it, this would be great for him. He has been kicked around for his “crime” enough to count towards his sentence.
OP goes off the rails. Calm down, Javert. Assange was persecuted for his journalism. It’s as clear as day
That’s funny. And delusional.
“When Exposing a Crime is Treated as Committing a Crime, You Are Ruled By Criminals.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US government is reported to be considering a plea deal offer to Julian Assange, allowing him to admit to a misdemeanor, but his lawyers say they have been “given no indication” Washington intends to change its approach.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the US justice department was looking at ways to cut short the long London court battle of the WikiLeaks founder against extradition to the US on espionage charges for the publication 14 years ago of thousands of classified US documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The report said a plan under consideration would be to drop the current 18 charges under the Espionage Act, if Assange pleaded guilty to mishandling classified documents, a misdemeanor offence.
The previous Democratic administration, under Barack Obama, ultimately decided not to charge Assange because of fears that doing so would infringe first amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of the press.
In 2019, the Trump administration pressed ahead with charges under the 1917 Espionage Act, seeking to differentiate conventional journalism from Assange’s actions, which provided a platform for the publication of leaked secret documents, and which prosecutors allege he knew would put lives in jeopardy.
In a hearing on Assange’s permission to appeal in February, his defence lawyers argued he could be targeted by US state agencies for “extra-legal attack elimination” if he were extradited, particularly given “the real possibility of a return of a Trump administration”.
The original article contains 503 words, the summary contains 238 words. Saved 53%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
