WikiLeaks' Assange to be indicted for spying 'soon' US prosecutors plan to file spying charges against Julian Assange soon in connection with the publishing of secret diplomatic memos on the WikiLeaks website. Assange attorney Jennifer Robinson told ABC News that charges would be brought “soon” under the US Espionage Act. The law makes it a felony to receive national defense …
Wikileaks has won about 100 court cases so far, some in the US. Some high-profile lawyers worked pro bono, but I imagine that there would be massive donations should a US prosecution ever eventuate.
That "friendly government" you refer to could be the Australian one, although I doubt he'd go back there. The pathetic US lickspittle Prime Minister appointed herself judge, jury and executioner. I doubt, though, that the Australian judiciary would bend over in the same way. She must have been to too many re-education camp sessions at the Australian American Leadership Dialogue (and the Australia-Israel Leadership Dialogue). Any predictions as to what cushy multinational corporate jobs she'll get when her political career goes down the gurgler?
The more obvious possibility is the Swedish government. Hopefully, British justice will nip this plot in the bud.
Communism and fascism are just -isms (that give me schisms - God Lynn and Jay were good!) coming under the umbrella of totalitarianism. As Assange has remarked, there is no longer any natural alliance between Western liberals and the Military-Industrial-Media Complex. The link between the history and geography no longer holds.
Folks, you are not furnishing a very impressive display of news-story exegetic skill. Stories like this one appear for a reason. Please, pay attention:
(1) The US Justice Department has announced an "ongoing" criminal investigation of Assange. Not an indictment, an "investigation".
(2) A criminal investigation is not an indictiment.
(3) If an indictment were brought the chances of an excruciatingly humiliating failure at trial are very high, under established US law. The DOJ knows this;
(4) The evidence that the US DOJ is in fact in the process of bringing an indictment "soon" does not come from any official statement or any leaked information from a DOJ insider. It comes from Assange's attorney WHO IS IN NO POSITION TO KNOW WHETHER THIS IS IN FACT TRUE.
(5) Assange's attorney *does* have an interest in keeping her client's martyr index as high as humanly possible. She can do this by giving gullible, lazy journalists a great-sounding news story that lights up their readerships' outrage. Cue spittle-flecked outbursts, letters to editor, contributions to legal funds, etc.
Seriously, go read the story again. Really read it. There's no there there.
I can't blame the attorney, since she's acting in her client's best interests. I can blame the journalists, however, who ought to make a more serious effort to get big stories right. And when reading the news, you folks should be applying your reason, before engaging your spittle glands.
Carlo Graziani said "Seriously, go read the story again. Really read it. There's no there there."
Try http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20025360-503544.html
"The House Judiciary Committee will hold a Dec. 16 hearing on the potential application of U.S. espionage laws in relation to WikiLeaks"
and
"The meeting, officially entitled the "Hearing on the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks," will address how espionage laws can be updated and effectively implemented in the digital era"
"If an indictment were brought the chances of an excruciatingly humiliating failure at trial are very high, under established US law."
Established law is not an objective observer of trials which steps in when needed. It is something that a lawyer can cite to a judge. The judge can choose to ignore it, just as many judges ignore the written law in favour of case law no matter how clearly the latter contradicts the former.
In short, if you can whip up enough of a hysteria against someone then you can have them lynched and buried long before anyone has the political will or power to stop you.
The law is a human institution, to quote O, Brother Where Art Thou?, and as such it is quite capable of being run by human emotions rather than black and white text.
I wouldn't be surprise they drag him unto USoA soil *somehow*, then charge him with whatever they please (expect there to be "mail fraud" in there too), and then declare that the first amendment doesn't apply to him because he's not a USoA natural born citizen. You know, give him the gitmo treatment. That gives a right clear message to everybody, which the various wrathful officials will insist spells out "don't thread on us" but to various people inside of the USoA and out will merely spell out a loud and clear challenge. Can you say "Streisand effect"? Now think the same thing, writ large.
So far the USoA has excelled in amplifying the damage and polarisation over this both. As an excercise in damage control it's a textbook example of what not to do. Which either means the entire USoA government apparatus is collectively made up of a house of cards full of flaming idiots, or they're doing it on purpose. I'm not prepared to guess which, though if history has anything to say about it, the safe bet is "both".
For those who claim that it is not feasible that Assange could be charged by the US for committing crimes outside of the US, you are being rather naiive.
For reference, look up the so-called NatWest Three. These men were indicted in the USA of offences which, if they occurred at all, did so on UK soil, and which were not actually illegal under UK law at the time.
Sadly, the UK has entered into an extradition agreement with the USA which does not allow UK courts to consider the legality or otherwise of the charges, but merely must rubber-stamp any correctly-executed extradition request. That lack of legality is not germane!
So all that is needed is an indictment and Assange will be toast. Hopefully, however, the UK's students will swing into action and attack the courts concerned!
"Justice Department officials have declined to comment on their plans, but Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier this week that his agency is doing everything it can to take Assange down."
Hmm so I take it that when the prosecution fails the assassins will be out in force....
Cant the Yanks just accept that they have been Caught out here and ...
The horse has bolted
But it is amusing to listen to all the old wrinkly american politicians getting all het up over this.. It must be the one thing thats finally woken some of the up from the stupor they are in
What many seem to be overlooking, whilst worrying about all the 'outing' of names of informers or American operatives, are the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people MURDERED by U.S. forces or their allies.
Maybe these people don't count because they are citizens of a country in conflict / not my relative / different colour / don't speak English.
What about the plain simple, unadorned murder of Reuters reporters by U.S. airborne troops?
What about Canadian and British troops killed by 'friendly fire' by U.S. forces?
Time to open the file, Assange and Wikileaks, the 'collateral damage' will be minimal compared to what the U.S. has done in the pursuit of oil under the guise of 'human rights' and 'democracy'!
There is in Brit common law the requirement for prosecution to inform defense of the content of the case being made. This persisted in the USA legal code. I don't know that Italy or Germany have or ever had that idea however. Well that explains some history I suppose.
Assange's lawyer should be informed, as a matter of proper legal protocol, by the prosecution, of how the prosecution intends to proceed.
Of course, what Assange & co. have been up to is so intensely political that a show trial is not impossible...
Clearly what we need is more gov't secrecy. It astounds me that we even let question period be reported. Seriously - can you not see the risk inherent in the public holding public servants accountable? And how are the secret police supposed to control us if their, uh, deliberations are not secret? We built democracy on the, ahem, right of secrecy of the politicians and bureaucrats did we not? The English revolution in the 1600's, the American revolution & constitution, the French Rights of Man - these were all intended to protect the rulers from interference from the serfs, pardon me, citizenry.
>>"Anybody else think the timing of the "terrorist" attack in Stockholm is a little bit too convenient ?"
Precisely what is it supposed to have achieved?
What part does the incompetence involved in it play - is that all part of the Sinister Plan?
It seems a strange thing to sacrifice either an agent or a dupe for minimal actual gain.
surely the whole reason why the U.S. gov is soiling it's pants is because it doesn't want those responsible for the crimes that have been exposed to be held accountable, that's why they're going after Assange instead. The Good Ol' U.S gov, if their laws don't fit they just make up new ones.
(mines the one with the video tape of U.S. troops murdering a bunch of Iraqi kids, and the U.S gov plans for 911 in the pocket)
AFAIK spying is a political crime so not covered under the UK-US extrodition treaty so unless Assange were to visit the US then they cant extrodite him to the US anyway to face prosecution.
Of course the US will probably charge him with some sort of terrorist crime so they can get around this and get him extrodited. No wonder US foreign policy is in such a state. What next they want to extrodite all the coffee shop owners from the Netherlands for selling weed to US citizens when they visit Amserdam because that would be illegal under US law
In order to extridite him in any kind of legal way, A) the US needs a treaty with the UK or Sweden, and this is key the be B) they can prove that the crime he is accused of is also a crime in the UK/Sweden. So is it a crime to release diplomatic cables from the US in the UK/Sweden espeacially when they where sent to you, and you didn't hack anything? And C) lastly there must be reciprocity. The US would have to hand over US citizens to Sweden under the same cirmustances. So under international law the US is hosed. However I don't think anyone really experts the US to follow international law.
Now Julian, we really do appreciate the efforts you are making to promote world peace. Here, in the Ministry of Truth we have a little room for the most articulate of our citizens. We can help out with that little Swedish situation, incidentally. We find that the truth about things is so often lost in rumour and translation - don't you think so?
Have you heard that old saw "The pen is mightier than the sword"? We don't find it so; shall we see what you think? Do come with me...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/AR2010120603074.html
I wasn't going to bother posting, but then I thought - this BS is why JA is doing this stuff...
> Founder Julian Assange recently posted a Tweet from one of his supporters declaring: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops."
Neglecting to mention that it was the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow, who said that
> Assange pioneered a new form of cyber sabotage.
lol
> Assange has threatened America with the cyber equivalent of thermonuclear war.
lol
> In recent days, WikiLeaks has had trouble staying online - in part because governments have been pressuring companies
Note the plural on "government" there, this makes it sound all big and international, actually the French government did try and have a word with a single hosting provider, before a judge told them to forget it - and this is the only other example the writer provides, to support his international-sounding plural.
> Amazon.com kicked WikiLeaks off of its servers after an aide to Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, complained.
Actual gloating that the government can violate the First Amendment, shame on you
> "You are either with us, or you are with WikiLeaks."
Hey wait, I've heard that before... when you were trying to convince us that Saddam had WMD....
> a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the United States does in fact have the offensive capabilities in cyberspace to take down WikiLeaks
Oh look an interesting bit, Pentagon admits cyber weapons capability...
> If "one guy with a laptop" can shut down WikiLeaks even temporarily, imagine what the 1,100 cyber-warriors at U.S. Cyber Command could do.
...with approx 1100 staff
> the perfect cover for the United States to deliver the coup de grace to WikiLeaks secretly, with no fingerprints
This is encouraging an illegal act, and is thus a crime to print
> Imagine the impact on WikiLeaks's ability to distribute additional classified information if its systems were suddenly and mysteriously infected by a worm that would fry the computer of anyone who downloaded the documents.
Again the writer is encouraging illegal acts
> Marc A. Thiessen, a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute,
I see, the AEI. All, remember well, AEI suck, hard, they are a professional US lobby firm and have some very bad form.
"Joe Lieberman ..... government ..... First Amendment"
While he demonstrably does sit on some committees, there's legitimate doubt over whether Joe Lieberman is actually a member of the AMERICAN government. More likely his concern is for the potential embarrassment of some foreign government or other.
America condemns a country for wanting to execute a person in an Islamic country for blasphemy and then wants to execute a person disrespecting their laws.
Or, that America condemns China for imprisoning a political dissident that has won the Nobel peace prize but now wants to imprison what is in effect a foreign political dissident.
America needs to realize that if they want to be the beacon of democracy and peace that they can't use authoritarian and dictatorial rules and practices to achieve it. The good guys are the good guys because they do what is right even if it is hard. The bad guys are the ones that claim to have to do bad things in order to make things right.
It is also interesting that there is more uproar from the US about the documents than there was about the journalists being murdered by the American gunship video that was also released by Wikileaks. I guess it is more of a problem to embarrass a politician by revealing trivial messages, gossip and general banalities than to show people and children being mowed down by the American military.
That if Attorney General Eric Holder REALLY was honest - then how come he hasn't dangled George W. Bush on the end of a rope, along with Tony Blair and John Howard, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Oh I forgot - millions of dead don't count for anything, but being able to lie your way through everything does.
Eric Holder = Fraud Master.
It seems quite funny to me, to charge and request extradition of foreign citizens who got second-hand information? What about KGB handlers, Stassi and all foreign organisations specifically created to spy on US? Then Russia would request the extradition in-masse of all CIA personal, whether in US or overseas. Then North Korea would request the extradition of Hillary Clinton as the end recipient of all secret information, and so on.
If they get there hands on him and subject him to something like controlled drowning (Waterboarding) I guess the USA would be able to say they have their confession. Of course the illegal attacks on Iraq and the attacks on other innocent civilians (collateral damage) is OK because it is in the name of the great USA freedom and democracy.
I liked the earlier comment
Making law up to fit your goals... ...is one of the distinguishing features of raging fascist/socialist regimes.
Sadly it is true and well publicised policies/events during the last administration by Bush eroded USA standing in the world. You have to earn respect and if the USA want to totally lose what little is left. carry on this ridiculous course. Laws and punishment have to be seen to be fair. Anyhow, the worst thing that will happen is that the files will be decrypted anyhow to all and sundry. This will be no different to what is happening now except ALL the files will be released in one go.
The real solution is to brush up on their own security (3 Million readers of confidential docs is way too many!) and take another read of the American constitution and the fairness to all that was intended. If you balance on the edge of a knife or policy precipice, sometimes you have to be prepared to fall off and swallow a bitter bill. The USA f***d up, Get over it.
Assange has shown up the world power broker for what it really is. Either make amends or continue to dig deeper because all they are digging, a deeper hole by this current course of reaction.
What is the difference between China's reaction to opponents and the USA's reaction to things they do not want other people to read about them?
Very little it seems.
>>"I liked the earlier comment"
>>"Making law up to fit your goals... ...is one of the distinguishing features of raging fascist/socialist regimes."
In this case, aren't they talking about trying to use existing laws?
If not, it's pretty hard to bring in new legislation and make it retroactive.
If they're trying to argue that existing law does cover it, then they're not making law up.
And in any case, doesn't almost *any* kind of government bring in (ie 'make up' ) laws to fit particular circumstances or objectives?
You can certainly say the particular objectives a government has are ones you think are wrong, but surely about the only system where a government *couldn't* bring in new laws to fit its goals would be one where it wasn't allowed to have any goals, where there was a direct democracy, and every single law was voted on by everyone.
Any 'representative democracy' has a government with goals of its own, where laws continually get 'made up' and altered to fit those goals, and where people periodically vote for the representatives who they think (or guess) will have the best (or least bad) goals.
It's not spying to be given data and then release it to everyone.
Spying is often deception, you are in an organisation but secretly passing information to someone else. It's all done secretly, not like Wikileaks who let the world know.
If anyone is the spy it is the person who leaked it in the first place. Journalists get leaked information at times and they aren't ever charged with spying.
I live in America. It's generally a really nice place to live, and Americans are generally a very nice people. Sadly, their leaders appear to to be increasingly full of shit. It would seem, at least to the casual viewer, that 9/11 actually worked with respect to disrupting rational thought on the part of US gov. The organization no longer appears to be able to see the big picture, or even adhere to the principles it claims to function by. No wonder nobody really listens to the US these days. If they don't practice what they preach, why should anyone else.
It's a genuine shame.
...unless it's, like, totally necessary to protect freedom and democracy and shit.
There's still a fascist majority in the Supremes, but it won't even get there - he'll be denied the right to appeal by some upwardly mobile creatures in a lower court.
Well, enjoy your martyrdom, St Assange. You've certainly worked hard to get it.
This smells so bad i'd be inclined to use the nuclear option and depending on the next hearing result , give the password to the file and just let the USA deal with their mess.
Enough is enough. I beleive the WL boys were truly very patient and responsible already.
But looking at the boys back in the US, i believe they haven't learned their lesson yet.
The information available on a variety of subjects and matters is vast. They can either clean up their act or just keep being bashed.The USA is no innocent victim.They are the agressors , the spies, they are the ones who leaked the documents.the people that cheat , lie and assassinate. Time to face the bully and bring it down ? We will see. But certainly they don't seem to learn anything about public relations.
David DID bring Goliath down.
You can support the Chinese dissident Lui Xiaobo just by thinking about him, but if you want to support the American dissident Brandley Manning in his fight for peace, justice and the American way of life (OK, I'm english in england but I can support the idea of peace and justice becoming the ruling traits in any bully nation) you need to support the legal battle that is taking place. It's not "Che Guevara needs some fighters" - this is the... USA - you do need to pay the lawyers.
So that's your choice - pay some cash to support the legal fight of the American dissident, or be as yellow and afraid as the fearful oppressed chinese in communist china.
I coughed up some money to help the great American dissident.
There ought to be a yearly Bradley Manning peace prize for those who fight against oppressive regimes.
Put him in front of a Muslim jury and lets find out if he's guilty or not.
Like i said in a previous post, the Americans have been caught with their trousers down in the park and in the past week, they have switched on every defence mechanism they can think of to try and shut the gates.
Too late, the leaks confirm what many have long suspected but couldn't prove.
Where's the "pissing into the wind" icon?
Oh hark at you all!
Squabbling over what is legal and what is not. The finest minds on the planet, or at least the most logical ones, all trying to second guess a system that is not in any way pro-you. The vast majority of you are thinking inside the box. No blue sky thinking going on around here.
Even if you believe in Capitalism, to the nth degree, you are being conned here:
You pay your taxes, your money, and your public servants go about their business. They are paid by you. They sever you. Yet you are not allowed to know about their cables, their discussions, their meetings, their musings, or their actions.
You paid for it all. You pay your taxes. You support these folks. And when their actions are revealed, they kick up hell.
Time to tell your public servants that secrecy has no place in a humane society.
Or just carry on having a brain fart over the legality of any kind of prosecution.
This is a symptom of your complacency.
Carry on. As you were. Nothing to see here...
To point out the last government official that was caught stealing documents, a Mr Samuel "Sandy' Berger, who in 1997, in the words of Nancy Pelosi, was the 'pointman' for the Chinese Government as well being Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
The weight of his various duties probably caused him to forget to inform the President, (who also may have had trouble remembering things) that plans for US nuclear warheads had made way into the hands of the Chinese for over a year.
Then in 2003, was found to have removed 4 copies of a classified report from the National Archives. (from Wikipedia, as i cant be bothered typing it all out)........ 'After a long investigation, Justice Department prosecutors determined that Berger only removed classified copies of data stored on hard drives stored in the National Archives, and that no original material was destroyed. Berger eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material on April 1, 2005. Berger was fined $50,000 [18], sentenced to serve two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, and stripped of his security clearance for 3 years. The Justice Department initially said Berger stole only copies of classified documents and not originals. But the House Government Reform Committee later revealed that an unsupervised Berger had been given access to classified files of original, uncopied, uninventoried documents on terrorism. Several Archives officials acknowledged that Berger could have stolen any number of items and they “would never know what, if any, original documents were missing.”
On December 20, 2006, Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that Berger took a break to go outside without an escort. "In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)." Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.
On May 17, 2007, Berger relinquished his license to practice law as a result of the Justice Department investigation. Saying, "I have decided to voluntarily relinquish my license." He added that, "While I derived great satisfaction from years of practicing law, I have not done so for 15 years and do not envision returning to the profession. I am very sorry for what I did, and I deeply apologize." By giving up his license, Berger avoided cross-examinination by the Bar Counsel regarding details of his thefts."
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