Re: Obama ends pursuit of Julian Assange

On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:47:36 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Just heard on the news that the United States government has entered
into a plea deal with Julian Assange. Assange is allowed to plead
guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, that vile law
written on behalf of the Wilson administration by Congress to silence
critics of WW1 and America's involvement in that horrid European war,
that has been used by subsequent administrations in all sorts of
creative ways to silence critics of America's war policies and just
generally to intimidate people into silence.
 
Even though the Supreme Court's discredited opinion in Schenck is no
longer law of the land, the Espionage Act has never been found to be
unconstitutional.
 
For reasons I'll never understand, the Obama administration was
particularly harsh against government whistleblowers, always finding
ways around whistleblower protection laws by prosecuting all leaks as
theft of government property.
 
Bradley Manning, who actually leaked the material to Assange, had his
criminal charges resolved years ago, but Assange's were never
resolved.
 
In this matter, rather than leaving the shame of this as a historical
embarassment and discredit to Obama, Trump did Obama's dirty work and
actually filed criminal charges against Assange.
 
The deal is "time served", which Assange had served in UK custody.
 
In odd symbolism as Assange won't set foot in the Washington DC, the
arrangement has been made to allow Assange to enter his plea before a
federal magistrate in Saipan and then from there, proceed to
Australia. This is totally meaningless as there are no issues with
extradition to the United States from Commonwealth of Northern
Mariana Islands, which is not an independent nation. But it's as
close to Australia as Assange can get in territory with United States
jurisdiction, so it makes him feel better or something.
 
He's still an arrogant prick, and those "removal of condom" charges
with all those women in Sweden he had sex with but who didn't want to
get pregnant with his child, were truly criminal acts. He was accused
of re-initiating sex without a condom after she'd fallen asleep
having had consensual sex with him, truly a rape charge.
 
Yes, by publishing everything Manning leaked, Assange had put lives in
danger, but no one believes Obama cared about that. It was strictly
about embarassment.
 
Americans have freedom to publish anything they like, except
information embarassing to the government, despite the guarantee of
this specific liberty as an enumerated right in the First Amendment.
It's against the law to publish, even if our enemies already have the
information, even if the information is known publicly, even if the
information were classified for no other reason than conspiracy to
cover up wrongdoing. The unconstitutional Espionage Act lives to put
future whistleblowers in prison another day.
 
https://apnews.com/article/assange-justice-department-plea-wikileaks-saipan-australia-00eb380879ff636cc9b916f82f82ed40

There's justice and there's "justice". Same as it ever was....

--
Rhino