Cables Show US Seeks Assange 488
prakslash writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that diplomatic cables they obtained show the U.S. investigation into possible criminal conduct by Julian Assange has been ongoing for more than a year, despite denials by the U.S. State Department and the Australian Foreign Minister. Further, the Australian diplomats expect that the U.S. will seek to extradite Assange to the U.S. on charges including espionage and conspiracy relating to the release of classified information by WikiLeaks."
Re:Firing squad (Score:5, Interesting)
Firing squad is reserved for soliders. Hermann Goering requested death by firing squad, but they said no, you're too scummy to die like a soldier... so he suicided with cyanide instead.
Assange would be considered a spy so they'd probably hang him, like they did the Rosenbergs.
Except that they don't have much of a case against him, so they're probably just taking a wait-and-see attitude. If they have anything even remotely concrete to charge him with, they would've done it by now and extradited him from Britain already. It would be easier to get him from Britain which is a US lapdog, than Sweden, which is not so much.
The cables show... what, exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in February that “the US investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr Assange has been ongoing for more than a year”....
The released diplomatic cables also show that the Australian government considers the prospect of extradition sufficiently likely that, on direction from Canberra, Mr Beazley sought high level US advice on “the direction and likely outcome of the investigation” and “reiterated our request for early advice of any decision to indict or seek extradition of Mr Assange”.
So, in other words, asking for advanced warning if the US does even make plans to request extradition equates to "US intends to chase Assange"? Really? I mean I have no doubt that if the US thought it could bring charges against him that didn't possibly fall under First Amendment protection, it probably would, but that is the evidence you have? The Australian embassy asking for advanced warning? That's not evidence. That's barely above speculation. Actually, no, it is speculation.
No surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone who is surprised by this (or who thinks that Sweden is not a part of it) is simply not paying attention.
Re:This, despite precedents protecting new reporti (Score:3, Interesting)
It has been shown time and time again, journalism is exempted from these kind of things. They are the recipients of information, not the ones giving out secrets.
That's generally true, but then there is no protection for, say, breaking into an office and stealing documents in order to publish them. And there is a continuum between active law breaking of that sort, and completely passive receipt of unsolicited information. If I were Assange, I would certainly not want to visit the US to find out if some one of my many activities had pushed far enough along that continuum that they could make a criminal case against me.
No speculation needed after this week. (Score:4, Interesting)
"In a statement issued after the Ecuadorean decision to grant Mr Assange political asylum, Mr Hague said the UK was under a "binding obligation" to extradite him to Sweden."
They're willing to throw centuries of tradition on diplomatic immunity out the window because of a "binding obligation" to extradite him.
When he hasn't been charged, his accusers have left the country, and he sought (and was granted) permission to leave Sweden in the first place. If you don't smell something rotten here, you've got a clothespin over your nose...
Re:Previous Charges (Score:5, Interesting)
Under Swedish law, they cannot file formal charges in Sweden until they interview him. Whether or not that interview strictly needs to take place in Sweden is an open question - I've seen some lawyers claim it must, I've seen other lawyers claim there's no such law, but I've yet to see anything remotely like a definitive answer, either in the wording of the law, or specific precedents where it's been done before.
Though even if it isn't required to happen in Sweden, I would say that it's unwise to set a precedent in which you allow a suspect in a criminal matter to dictate the terms under which he'll agree to an interview about the charges. In any other situation, if a judge says, "return here for an interview," and the suspect says "yeah, no thanks, but you can totally send someone over here for a chat," the suspect will get slapped with contempt of court sanctions... allowing a suspect to undermine judicial authority like that (essentially, thumbing his nose at the Swedish legal system and saying "fuck off") can have other long-range implications that Sweden may not be willing to bear the cost of.
The gameplan (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems that neither the general public nor the Assanage understand the game-plan. It is fairly easy. They intend on making him so paranoid that he will become a prisoner of his own making. Even if he manages to get out of London unmolested by the British police their security aparatus, and get to Ecuador -- he will be a wanted man across the entire Commonwealth spectrum, because in effect by leaving he will be breaking British law. That will effectively make him both a most wanted and persona-non-grata within much of the world. The only places where he will be able to travel freely would be within the new Bolivarian states, Russia and perhaps some of the Middle East.
But even than he won't be able to travel freely at all, and perhaps will not be able to step out within the confines of his future place of living in Ecuador, because there will be many who would want to capture and deliver him to any British enclave. (in Americas think Stanley, or Georgetown, or even Ottawa).
And the best part about it -- all Americans have to do is to continue denying that they are actively perusing him while giving subtle hints and "leaks" that they actually do.
We love United States (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who is surprised by this (or who thinks that Sweden is not a part of it) is simply not paying attention.
But, but ... the Swedish prosecutor has gone on record saying specifically that Sweden won't extradite Assange for torture or the death penalty.
Seriously, though, I hear Julian is going to be out front on Sunday. It would be quite an art project if two hundred other young clean-shaven thin white men with white wigs, white button-down shirts, gray wool pants, black dress shoes and socks, and Guy Fawkes masks all swarmed him and then got into passing cars.
Re:Real Cables (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is answered in the second paragraph of your link:
"Two judges sitting in London allowed an appeal against extradition by fugitive Shawn Sullivan, 43, after the American authorities refused to give an assurance that he would not be placed on a controversial sex offenders treatment programme in Minnesota."
Presumably, Sweden was able to provide sufficient guarantees to satisfy the UK that the Swedish government would not place Mr. Assange in a controversial sex offenders treatment program in Minnesota.
Add to that the fact that Sweden and UK are both signatories to the EAW framework as EU members, which streamlines the process for extradition between two EU member states, while the US hasn't yet been admitted to the EU, and you've got a fairly clear picture of why the UK would extradite Assange to Sweden, but decline to extradite Mr. Sullivan to the US.
Unfortunate (Score:4, Interesting)
It is quite unfortunate and demonstrates that US leaders still don't "get" it. They think that prosecuting Assange will have some kind of effect on Wikileaks when nothing could be further from the truth.... or they're just trying to get back at him out of spite (same reason they tortured Manning when he was obviously guilty and a simple court martial would have seen him put in prison for the rest of his life. Why degrade ourselves?)
The reason the US isn't explicitly asking for extradition is probably because we intend to perform an "extraordinary rendition" and snag him from Sweden illegally (but with Swedish cooperation), then imprison him in Gitmo forever without trial.
I wish I were joking. My grandfather volunteered for WWII; It makes me sad that we have thrown all the things he fought for in the trash can, first in a blind attempt to fight communism (when the prudent course was just to let it die under its own weight just like the USSR did), then in a blind attempt to fight a "war on drugs", and now in a blind attempt to fight a "war on terror".
Oh well... so many Americans are petty and FYGM these days. I guess it's no surprise that our politicians are too. When we had the Soviets to fight against it forced us to push all objections out of the way and cooperate for the common good. We managed to do such great and big things back then... We voted to tax ourselves to build the Interstate Highway system. Imagine proposing a tax to build a national "Internet Highway" today!
The threat of communism put the Fear Of God(TM) into the rich and forced them to share the wealth, which in turn improved everyone's lives. Now it's all slipping away.
What a sad state of affairs.
Re:IN SOVIET AMERIKA (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand how you think that most news orgainzations are just parroting the White House. The Obama administration regularly gets nocked by the mainstream press. Yes there are solidly liberal-leaning outlets out there (MSNBC being the largest), but that is not the mainstream press.
Fox News is the only news organization (that I am aware of) that has actually gone to court and testified under oath that their producers deliberatly wanted to lie to their viewers:
http://www.relfe.com/media_can_legally_lie.html
And it has been repeadly shown in studies that people who rely on Fox News have many of the important facts wrong about major events (e.g.: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf), in most cases doing worse than people who did not regularly watch any news.
If people are getting their news only from sources that are openly (or near-openly) slanting their news, what hope does Democracy have? I will take an incompotent press (e.g.: much of mainstream media) long before I will accept one that is deliberatly biased.
I personally listen to NPR's news programs (very good, and very balanced), and leven that out with the Economist and an ocassional German news magazine. The Economist has a bit of an over-focus on pro-buisness, but they do try to be fair, and the German magazines often have a very different perspective than either the US or Brittish take.
Re:This, despite precedents protecting new reporti (Score:3, Interesting)
He didnt break into anything.
True--as far as we know he wasn't at that end of the continuum. But my point was, I think we do not know that he was a completely passive recipient of unsolicited information. How far did he go in promoting the "theft" of the material that was disclosed? What actions did he take to encourage it? What direction did he provide as to selection of material?
There's a lot we don't know about how he operated, and there's plenty of gray area in which to look for plausible criminal charges. Note: to look for them--I am not claiming that he did break any law that could be applied, just that the possibility cannot be ruled out.
Re:Previous Charges (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the charge is about allegedly not wanting to use a condom, and then breaking it intentionally when he was forced to wear one. It qualifies as "rape" here. None of the defendants actually wanted to press these charges, but the prosecutor did anyway. Or rather, someone did, and then the prosecutor dropped them, then it became a media thing, and for no apparent reason a new prosecutor stepped in and said of course they'd take it up again, and so on.
So basically, the charges are highly dubious, and either just a massive clusterfuck of mediawhoring gone wrong, or an actual request from say the US. Reglardless of what some previous commenters have said it would be quite easy for the US to get Assange from Sweden. We have special agreements on the treatment of certain people in certain cases, which basically means that if the US appealed to that agreement then we'd hand over Assange without question. It wouldn't even officially be an extradition, they could just come and pick him up, no legal investigation of their claim or anything.
That's why people assume this is a US conspiracy, that they'd have an easier time getting him here. Because they would. Me, as a swede, I'm leaning towards "never attribute to malice what can be equally well explained by stupidity". And sweden is damn stupid when it comes to anything regarding rape, especially in high profile cases where certain prosecutors think they have a slight chance of winning a few favours.
Still, if Assange comes here... The US can pick him up any time they want.
Oh, posting AC because IAAL tangentially involved with the original case.
Re:This, despite precedents protecting new reporti (Score:5, Interesting)
IF Mr. Assange can be shown to have *solicited* the data from PFC Manning, then the charge is espionage, which IS a crime in the United States, regardless of where you happen to be sitting when you're collecting your data.
Just because it's a crime in the United States doesn't mean the US has jurisdiction over a foreigner on foreign soil. Possession of cannabis is a crime in the US. Are we going to start extraditing potheads from the Netherlands?
If you are not in a country, or a citizen of the country you are not obligated to obey that country's laws. Period.
Re:IN SOVIET AMERIKA (Score:5, Interesting)
His crime? Journalism.
That all depends on his role. Stealing the cables is illegal, but publishing them isn't. That, in short, is why Bradley Manning is in jail, and the editor of the New York Times is not. The question is, which role did Assange play?
If Bradley Manning planned the theft of the cables himself and then handed it off to Wikileaks, Assange is in the clear, just like the New York Times. But if Assange and Manning had a dialogue, and Assange guided or helped Manning in any way, Assange is guilty of espionage.
I think that if the U.S. had a strong case, Assange wouldn't be hanging out in the Ecuadorian embassy, instead the British would have rounded him up and sent him off the the U.S. for trial a long time ago. But Assange isn't stupid or complacent, he's smart and paranoid. So he did one of two things. Either (a) he helped Manning, but he did so in a way that was completely untraceable, or (b) he was smart about it, and said "whoa, hey dude, happy to help distribute this stuff but I'm not going to be involved in stealing anything."
I'd bet that Assange kept his hands clean. He's expecting the U.S. to come after him, and so if someone approaches him about the possibility of stealing American intelligence, he'll suspect a trap. Even once he's satisfied that it's not a trap, he'd see the risks posed by direct involvement. Another thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. has been leaning on Manning for a long time. You can bet the interrogators and prosecutors have told him that if he implicates Assange, they can get him a better deal. So Manning has told them Assange isn't involved- and either he's steel-willed and won't break, or he's being honest. Either way, the U.S. is screwed.
Re:This, despite precedents protecting new reporti (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm saying if Assange offered any technical advice to Manning on how to secretly transfer information in order to hide Mannings involvement, that could fall under the area of conspiracy.
By that logic, notice on Wikileak's homepage suggesting the use of GnuPG/PGP would create a conspiracy. I think the US' authorities are out of control and desperately need to be taught a lesson in civility.
Re:The sex charge were submitted 3 months ... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're wrong. Articles about the cables like this one [guardian.co.uk] appeared months before the women even talked to the police. The three months after was just when they started releasing the cables.
Re:Real Cables (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes it is. Among other things, he is a accused of having non-consensual sex with a sleeping woman. That is considered rape in the US, Australia, and all of the EU
And in the right context its also considered a good way to wake up in all of those same jurisdictions... either that or my wife and I have occasionally raped each other. /sarcasm
Its not like she got drunk, crashed on someones bed at a party, and woke up to him having sex with her. Context should matter. Intent should matter.
The context is they'd already had consensual sex and were sleeping together. On top of that we have no physical evidence that it even occurred except that she said so.
So we're going to internationally extradite him on something that a lot of people are dubious is even really criminal, and which likely would be utterly impossible to prove in court.
Re:No speculation needed after this week. (Score:2, Interesting)
Diplomatic immunity is and was intended to shield the guests nation's envoys and anyone who claims asylum. There's both laudable and infamous examples and precedents: On the nice side, alleged criminal Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary was convicted of treason and sentenced to death for his participation in the 1956 uprising; but when he fled to the US embassy of Budapest, not even the Kádár regime considered storming the embassy. Similarly, when the Viet Cong took over Saigon, they waited until the US embassy was fully evacuated before they entered the building. On the nasty side, you might be familiar with the event where a Lybian embassy staff member murdered a bystander just outside their London embassy, and was subsequently allowed to take a plane home to Lybia entirely unmolested by the British.
Re:Firing squad (Score:4, Interesting)
Assange would be considered a spy so they'd probably hang him, like they did the Rosenbergs.
According to an article in the New York Times (which I can't find right now, otherwise I'd link to it), nobody outside of the U.S. government/military has ever been prosecuted for publishing information leaked from the U.S. government/military. The prosecution have always backed down because they know they would have to argue that the First Amendment right to publish information that you have obtained about the government does not apply to whoever they're prosecuting, and that a jury may well decide that the First Amendment actually does matter after all. Numerous newpapers have published leaked information, and the New York Times and others actually conspired with Assange to publish the diplomatic cables etc. However, in Assange's case, it's possible that they just plan to put him in front of a military court with a predetermined judge and outcome.
Oh, here's a reference: "No journalist has been prosecuted for publishing leaked information under the Espionage Act." [latimes.com] Though it seems a new game is afoot: "Why the WikiLeaks Grand Jury is So Dangerous: Members of Congress Now Want to Prosecute New York Times Journalists Too" [eff.org]