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Australian MPs To Lobby US To Drop Julian Assange Prosecution or Risk 'Very Dangerous' Precedent for Russia and China (theguardian.com) 117

Julian Assange's supporters will urge the US to drop the prosecution of the Australian citizen on the basis the "very dangerous" precedent will be exploited by China and Russia. From a report: Six Australian politicians are expected to focus on freedom-of-speech arguments when they fly to Washington DC later this month to warn against extraditing the WikiLeaks founder from the UK. The MPs and senators from across the political spectrum are aiming to help build momentum for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to raise the case in bilateral talks with Joe Biden at the White House in late October. The trip is being funded by the Assange campaign.

Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London as he fights a US attempt to extradite him to face charges in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as well as diplomatic cables. Greg Barns SC, an adviser to the Assange campaign, said on Tuesday that it was "not an ordinary run-of-the-mill extradition case." He said freedom of speech was "an important theme in the US."

"You've got China chasing journalists around the world, and you've got the Russians who have recently arrested journalists," Barns told Guardian Australia. "You've now got China using the Assange case as a sort of moral equivalence argument. So the message [of the Australian delegation] is going to be: this is very dangerous for journalists around the world and a race to the bottom that's going on."

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Australian MPs To Lobby US To Drop Julian Assange Prosecution or Risk 'Very Dangerous' Precedent for Russia and China

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  • by RedK ( 112790 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @09:44AM (#63824950)

    But to claim that it sets a precedent for China and Russia ? You think those places care about precedent ?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @09:46AM (#63824964) Homepage Journal

      They do often cite the stuff that the US (and parts of Europe) get up to as justification for their actions. Usually at the UN.

      How much it matters I don't know. The UN is mostly just countries berating each other at every opportunity. It might be an issue if we ever manage to bring some of those people like Xi and Putin to justice, although I'm sure there is more than enough to put them away for life even without attacks on journalists.

      • by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:21AM (#63825090)

        It doesn't matter at all. They, like the Saudis, can just chop up journalists and tell everyone to fuck themselves.

        Also what he's accused of doesn't really fall under "free speech".

        • by msk ( 6205 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @01:36PM (#63825642)

          Do you believe that publication of The Pentagon Papers should have resulted in prison time?

          • Do you believe that publication of The Pentagon Papers should have resulted in prison time?

            He's not facing prison time for "publication".

        • by Qwertie ( 797303 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @03:12PM (#63825870) Homepage

          While China can tell everyone to f**k themselves, hypocrisy has a lot of propaganda value both inside and outside the Free World. And yes, there is plenty of hypocrisy in U.S. history, but the U.S. still looks better relative to China (especially within the free world) if the U.S. stops doing obviously hypocritical sh*t.

          Consider: Russian propaganda says "so what if we invaded Ukraine - the U.S. invaded Iraq!" But that invasion happened 20 years ago and there is no huge chorus of Americans eager to bomb Iraq nowadays. But if, last year, the U.S. had declared that Iraq was its 51st "state", Russia's whataboutism would be much more persuasive.

          Also what he's accused of doesn't really fall under "free speech".

          What he's accused of, as far as I know, is acting as a middleman: someone gave him classified information and he gave journalists access to it. I am unsure how this is different from Ed Snowden sending documents directly to journalists. Anyone care to explain?

          But what really gets me is that Assange is an Australian living in the U.K. being extradited to the U.S. for breaking U.S. law. How can he be subject to U.S. jurisdiction? If what he did was illegal in the U.K., why can't he be tried in the U.K.? If what he did was legal in the U.K., why is it legal to extradite him?

          • Because it's the Australian government. There are countries around the world that don't extradite their own citizens ever, under no circumstances. Then there are countries like Australia that don't lift a finger to help their citizens who may be in trouble abroad, not if the citizen is in the US, not if the citizen is in the UK, not if the citizen is in Iran, not even if the citizen is in Australia and some country asks for a rendition.

            It's the colonial inferiority complex, imho.

          • It is up to the country to decide if he should be extradited. Countries have agreements for such things. Here is an example. It is illegal to enter Canada if you are guilty of some crimes. In some US states it is illegal to have sex with someone to who is married to someone else. In Canada it is not. If you are found guilty of adultery in the United States you are still allowed to visit Canada because, well, you did not commit a crime as far as we are concerned. However, should the states call up Canada a
        • by DrXym ( 126579 )

          Read the indictment [justice.gov]?

          Free speech, or journalism is not carte blanche to break the law or conspire with others for them to do so. He'll be extradited and put on trial and his lawyers can try those arguments out on the jury and see how successful they are.

          Aside from this set of indictments, I expect he'll be getting a bunch more when he is in US custody for all the other shit he got up to during his time hiding in an embassy.

      • by DrXym ( 126579 )

        They always do. Doesn't mean Assange shouldn't be prosecuted though, or that if he wasn't that Russia / China wouldn't just do the thing they're doing under some other pretense.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      It's about being able to win the propaganda war, numbnuts.

      Think outside your limitations for once.
      • by RedK ( 112790 )

        > It's about being able to win the propaganda war, numbnuts.

        That would require the US dismantling the CIA and stopping any and all interventions around the globe. If your goal is to not have the West be called hypocrites.

        So might as well stop caring what 2nd and 3rd world countries think, because I doubt 1st world countries will stop being interventionist assholes.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Yes they do. They get to say the USA does it too so we can, so the USA should shut up, etc etc.

      They would/might still do it if the USA doesn't do it but they don't get the satisfaction of pointing out the USA does it too.

      I'm sure the Chinese Government will be very happy to have more examples of the USA's failings and hypocrisy to provide in its propaganda to its own citizens.

      BTW does China do the Assange thing on people who aren't its citizens or former citizens AND not living in China? I do know they do s
    • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:27AM (#63825108)

      Maybe. For the publication of materials provided to WL, yes. But there's that little issue of providing Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning with assistance in acquiring some information that can't be overlooked. It's here where Assange stepped over the line.

      That said, Julian should just negotiate a guilty plea in exchange for time served and be done with it.

    • by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@[ ]rstead.org ['kei' in gap]> on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @01:09PM (#63825576)

      You're missing the point.

      The point is that if the US is successful in convincing the UK to extradite Assange, then it is going to make it far easier for China to extradite journalists *from other European countries*, because they will cite this as an example. IE - journalist criticizes China, flees to Belgium - they would no longer be safe from China.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Also Assange is not a US citizen and AFAIK was not in USA when he allegedly broke US law.

        So do we really want people who are not Chinese citizens, not living in China to be extradited to China for allegedly breaking China's laws?

        AFAIK China so far has done the "rendition" thing on Chinese citizens AND ex-Chinese citizens: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018... [foreignpolicy.com]

        But unlike the USA there doesn't seem to be many publicized cases of China kidnapping foreigners in foreign countries. In contrast the USA does it: https:/ [wikipedia.org]

    • You think those places care about precedent ?

      Yes, they do. Using our own behavior against us has tremendous propaganda value. One of the reasons why most of the world outside of the US and Europe doesn't give a crap about Ukraine is precisely because they know Russia's invasion is no more "illegal" or "immoral" than anything we did to Iraq, Syria or Libya.

      This issue should be of particular concern to the West because most of the rest of the world is moving into the BRICS orbit, and there is a very high risk

    • But to claim that it sets a precedent for China and Russia ? You think those places care about precedent ?

      USA, Russia, China,, they're all just pots and kettles anyway, and theres so much soot on all of them how can you even tell which are pots and which are kettles?

      • Does it matter which one is which? When the strongest one will get their way, and that's it.

        • Does it matter which one is which? When the strongest one will get their way, and that's it.

          Indeed, to the detriment of us all.

          • What's really frustrating is when political partisans try to claim some kind of moral superiority. When in fact they've been for sale since decades. But of course blatant hypocrisy is totally OK when *we* do it....

    • It's not about whether China and Russia believe their own bullshit. It's about American credibility when trying to convince third-party countries of what we stand for.
      • Oh, don't worry, the west isn't going to regain any credibility any time soon.

        • Bullshit. Putin gave the West a huge credibility boost. And we don't forget the parallel relationship Wikileaks had with the Kremlin agenda.

          Assange is no spy, but he is one ethically lazy motherfucker.
          • Yes, that's why the global south is speeding up on getting non-dependent on the dollar, ending the CFA franc and the regimes that support it, and otherwise diversifying from being a colony. Not only that, our allies in places like Azerbaijan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or the Philippines are quaking in their boots at how strongly we uphold the alleged values of paradise against the jungle, from wiping any stability in the middle east though an illegal war filled to the brim of war crimes that are unrepor

            • The "global South" chose to be dependent on the dollar in desperation because they repeatedly failed to manage their own currencies. The consequences for them of depending instead on arbitrary regimes in Beijing and Moscow will be predictable and hilarious.

              As for your verbal "whataboutism" diarrhea, you're literally telling people to ignore the genocidal war of conquest in Ukraine because you can name any grievance ever against the United States.

              Drink your vodka and shut up, you totalitarian troll.
              • The "choice" is well documented in the freedom spreading coups and bloody dictatorships for good; the only way they chose is because the quantity of supplied weapons was larger.

                And thus you completely miss the point. They would not be cooperating if it was not for sovereignty, because there are fully aware they would, again, be disposable pawns, just like the people we claim are protecting, while their country got rights permanently curtailed and was sold to the highest bidder. Making up a genocide because

                • And the whataboutism diversionary diarrhea continues. Put a sock in it, botsky. You're not fooling anyone.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @09:47AM (#63824968)

    Since when has moral justification been a thing? 99% of the time it's used post facto in combination with mental gymnastics.

    • by HBI ( 10338492 )

      It's not about actual moral justification - if that were the case, Assange would never have been pursued into the Ecuadorian embassy. The West was essentially over when that happened, it's back to the old days of repression.

      I'll confine myself purely to espionage. How do you convince a young person that the USG or its allies are in the right here? And if you can't, then what is there to stop them from sharing secrets with foreign powers...like China and Russia?

      Flip side, if you were going to defect from

  • Naive? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @09:53AM (#63824994)

    The Australians can't possibly believe the US government gives a damn about freedom of speech or the protection of journalists to publish, etc, etc.

    Our long term record on these issues has been better than the typical dictatorship but we have not been a shining beacon of light historically speaking and in recent years our government's behavior in this regard has been extremely shabby.

    I love my country but I am not going to pretend there are no flaws. This is an area we have been sucking at for years.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      That's why they're going with the "don't give China and Russia a precedent" argument. The "but the ideals you supposedly hold dear" argument has gone nowhere.

    • The Australians can't possibly believe the US government gives a damn about freedom of speech or the protection of journalists to publish, etc, etc.

      The Australians are just as bad as [wikipedia.org] Americans.

      Our long term record on these issues has been better than the typical dictatorship but we have not been a shining beacon of light historically speaking and in recent years our government's behavior in this regard has been extremely shabby.

      And the USA has a protracted history of fabricating [wikipedia.org], exaggerating [wikipedia.org] accusations on its geopolitical rivals. (Sadly some of those "persecutions" are fabricated [nytimes.com] by money-seeking citizens [npr.org] of the said rivals.)

      But none [brennancenter.org] of these [vera.org] really matter, as long as Americans, like yourself, believe whatever horrible stories are told to them and that they support their "great" nation.

      • Did I or did I not just get through saying my country isn't perfect, followed by you saying I'm a mindless idiot who believes everything he's told?

        Hint: I did. Followed by you not reading what I said and then accusing me of the opposite. You even quoted me and got it wrong.

        Your apology is accepted.

        • You misunderstood what I said.

          Your problem is not in believing "your country is perfect" but in believing " is evil because of ". This is essentially negative marketing. Rather than pitching how perfect one is, one pitches how "worse" the rival is -- typical tactic you've seen in every US election but rarely notice when coming to the matters of geopolitical interests to the USA. And you have already succumbed to that. And I have shown you the evidences from the past behaviors of this country.

          • Correction:

            " is evil because of "

            should be

            "[China/Russia/Iraq/or whoever is the current rival] is evil because of [genocide/cyber threat/WMD/or whatever FUD your government making up]"

            (The parser mistaken the angle bracket as HTML tag.)

  • It is not the precedent that China or Russia could argue that is the main problem, it is the hypocrisy of the US, UK, Sweden governments about defending freedom that is obvious to see to all.

         

    • Re:Real problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RedK ( 112790 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:03AM (#63825022)

      > it is the hypocrisy of the US, UK, Sweden governments about defending freedom that is obvious to see to all.

      Asange is but one on a huge pile of things the Five Eyes does that's highly hypocritical.

      The US should drop charges against Asange because they're just blatantly morally wrong. Not because of some dumb "But what will other countries think!" notion.

      • He solicited classified and confidential information, blatantly illegal.

        The pentagon papers weren't solicited for instance, the leaker offered them to a journalist.

        The pretence these 2 circumstances are similar is laughable.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          He solicited classified and confidential information, blatantly illegal.

          Attempting to classify evidence of a crime is also illegal.

          That also means you haven't even made a convincing argument that these documents ARE classified in the first place.
          It has been judged the government committed crimes these documents were involved in.
          Any classifications on them were invalid.
          That means they were not actually under any secret classification, no matter how much it was falsely claimed to be.

          The only outstanding question is if certain government officials were under an impression they wer

          • Re: Real problem (Score:4, Informative)

            by zeeky boogy doog ( 8381659 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:57AM (#63825186)
            If he had only published the documents that were relevant to the crimes in question that would have been one thing. It would indeed have been a very difficult thing and a very bad look to go after Assange just for that.

            But that's not what he did. He took the whole thing, including a ton of things that were classified with good reason, and published them all... including information that endangered American agents, allies and sources.

            Then he followed up by soliciting negative information about Russian Hitler's gangster-state, got a visit from Russian Hitler's goons, and shortly thereafter WikiLeaks turned into a fully owned and operated GRU front, but that's another matter.
            • Re: Real problem (Score:5, Insightful)

              by VicVegas ( 990077 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @11:07AM (#63825220) Homepage

              Exactly zero people were endangered. I love how people trot this line out, without a shred of evidence to support it.

              • Exactly. We know no one died, because Brigadier General Robert Carr, who headed up the investigation, told us that.
                "In 2013, Brigadier general Robert Carr, who headed the IRTF, testified at Chelsea Manning's sentencing hearing that the task force had found no specific examples of anyone who had lost his or her life in reprisals due WikiLeaks' publication of material provided by Manning."

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

                  I drove at 100mph through downtown Washington DC. No one was injured. Therefore I demand that my speeding ticket be dropped!! After all, being a self absorbed reckless narcissist is not a crime, using Assange as precedent.

                • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
                  That's the second time you posted that statement with no citation.
                  • It was the very first text that Google offered up when I typed in something like "Did julian Assange get anyone killed?".
                    Here's the very first link I got this time, which states the same thing but in more detail:
                    https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
                    So yes, according to the Pentagon, no one was hurt.

                    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
                      Thank you.

                      I see why you did not include the link; what's in that linked article is significantly different from what you asserted. The people correcting you were accurate.

                    • Say what?
                      From the article I linked:
                      "It has been one of the main criticisms of the WikiLeaks publications that they put lives at risk, particularly in Iran and Afghanistan. The admission by the Pentagon's chief investigator into the fallout from WikiLeaks that no such casualties were identified marks a significant undermining of such arguments."

                    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
                      Brigadier General Robert Carr was quoted in the article. Here is what he said "As a result of the Afghan logs I know of one individual killed – an Afghan national who had a relationship with the US government and the Taliban came out and said publicly that they had killed him as a result of him being associated with information in these logs."

                      Under cross examination, he wasn't able to corroborate this statement, and the defense had it stricken from the record.

                      But that's not the same as "exactly zero

          • Nothing was curated. Assange got a huge drop of data, and published it ALL without looking to see what were evidence of crimes, what were evidence of wrongdoing in the Us government, or what was normal operation military intelligence in Iraq. Assange had the view point that all secrets are immoral. It _could_ have caused loss of life, the fact that it didn't does not absolve Assange from his irresponsible actions.

            Manning spent time in jail, right or wrong. Manning is OUT of jail now. Assange is hiding

          • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

            "That means they were not actually under any secret classification, no matter how much it was falsely claimed to be."

            A car doesn't have to be classified secret for stealing it to be a crime.

            "Attempting to classify evidence of a crime is also illegal."

            Is it? Citation please.

            "It has been judged the government committed crimes these documents were involved in."

            So? Do crimes committed to obtain the documents cease to be crimes then?

            "Assange is not one of those people however."

            He would not be, nor does it matt

      • Re:Real problem (Score:4, Insightful)

        by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @12:56PM (#63825546)

        > The US should drop charges against Asange
        > because they're just blatantly morally wrong.

        No. The US should drop all charges (and never have filed them in the first place) because Assange is neither a resident nor citizen of the US and... so far as I can recall... he was not in the US when he supposedly committed his made-up "crimes". Sitting here on my bum in California, should I have to give a flying fuck about Saudi Arabia's laws regarding LGBT people or China's wrt/ Tiananmen and advocating democracy? Of course not.

        Extradition is supposed to be for retrieving people who've absconded from jurisdictions in which they have (allegedly) committed crimes. It's *NOT* supposed to be a tool for fishing expeditions against people who've annoyed the powerful or made the nation look foolish, but who've never owed them any allegiance or obeyance.

        • "He isn't a US citizen and wasn't on US soil so it's not a crime" is a pretty dumb take on this. He conspired directly with a group of hackers to steal information for personal benefit. That is a crime, and is precisely what extradition treaties are for. And the example of "what if Saudi Arabia demanded I be extradited for insulting the king" is precisely why we don't have extradition treaties with them, and why said treaties are negotiated case by case with our national values in mind when we choose to mak

  • Rather (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:13AM (#63825062) Homepage
    Rather, a very dangerous precedent among liberal democracies. Russia and China have their own legal process and values that are more materialist than ideological. They won't be impacted by this case. But Julian's prosecution in the US will rip away the curtain of supposed freedom or of the rules based world order and expose the blatant corruption. The US, is thus in a bind; Legitimize Julian by acquittal, risking opening the whistleblower floodgates, or delegitimize itself by prosecution.
    • I agree with you, I don't believe the US is actually going to prosecute Assange, that would be a loose/loose situation (if he gets acquitted it legitimize anyone that feels some secret should be known by public, if he is sentenced it shows that there is no freedom of press). Better letting him rot in jail in the UK waiting for a decision that will never come. Given that, for what i gather, he has already being destroyed physically and psychologically by the detention, he should call the bluff and turn himse
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Absolutely nothing you said has anything to do with law or abjectivity, only with what someone gets out of an action. Says a lot about you.

  • They would love to see the precedent set that it's okay to hack US government computers and expose the names of undercover US agents and people helping America around the world.
  • You don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AcidFnTonic ( 791034 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @11:04AM (#63825212) Homepage

    You don't get it. This matters a lot because other countries can make stupid laws and try to get people who never visited there but bothered them on the internet to be arrested.

    Assange never did anything on American soil. He did nothing different than publish another countries dirty laundry.

    Americans say well he asked for confidential data. Well don't Americans do the same when pressuring Korea to shut down hidden prison camps? Don't we try to find documentation proving it to leak? Don't we ask for confidential data about Chinese animal rights abuse? Don't we publish things obtained from sneaking into labs on their soil given to us by leakers?

    Americans who never visited china but publish some things that government doesn't like should be totally fine. Assange did it and then we arrested him even though he wasn't under our laws. This IS a bad precedent. You are morons to not understand that.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "Assange never did anything on American soil."

      But he conspired to commit crimes on American property.

      "He did nothing different than publish another countries dirty laundry."

      No, he committed crimes to obtain the laundry.

      "Well don't Americans do the same when pressuring Korea to shut down hidden prison camps? "

      They may, do they violate Korean law when they do it? Do they then publish it publicly and provide it to all of Korea's enemies? And by "Americans" do you mean American government officials or do you

  • Whistleblowing is when an informant sees something that they believe is illegal or immoral, and after raising it up their chain-of-command, they decide to make the difficult moral decision of escalating it further - either to an elected representative, or a high-level administrator, or a journalist. This is a very difficult thing to do and comes with great personal risk because if they are wrong - then they aren't a whistleblower, they are a traitor.

    In this context, a journalist is someone who publishes in

    • Clearly, Assange is not a whistleblower. I don't care whether he qualifies for the term "journalist." If he published stuff on the web without looking at it, is he any different than say Twitter?

      As I understand it, the main allegation against him is that he conspired to steal the documents, not that he published them.

      • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        As I understand it, the main allegation against him is that he conspired to steal the documents, not that he published them.

        Okay, I can accept that.

        If he published stuff on the web without looking at it, is he any different than say Twitter?

        Yes. Twitter is an automated computer system which "publishes" content that is blindly provided by users (or bots!). Same with Wikipedia or Slashdot. Data in, data out. Julian Assange does not fit in this category.

  • Somewhere inside the "deep state," probably CIA or Pentagon, there are a few people whose ox got badly gored by Assange. And, you can bet that they have read the riot act to both Trump and Biden (or whoever the current acting president actually is). There is no way at this point that the US is going to back down on Assange, not until those people are six feet under, and it appears that Assange will be in that state sooner.

  • I used to be an Assange supporter, but that was before he gave up the pretense of being just a journalist interested in publishing the truth and started weaponising it for political ends. At that point as far as I am concerned (even as a fellow Australian) he gave up any protections a so called journalist would have.
  • Regardless of whether there's procedural justification for it... and there is... the appearance and impact would be entirely to the detriment of American credibility and security. His "crime" was lacking the legal understanding that trained journalists have in how to solicit cooperation from whistleblowers without exposing themselves to being charged as accomplice in breaking classification. Punishing that is not worth even the price we've already paid, let alone continuing to pay it.
  • Ah, good to see Mr. Hat is trying to keep himself relevant.

  • Assange was not a journalist. Just because you put up a site that reports stolen items does NOT make you a journalist.
    However, with that said, what case do we have on Assange? The most that can be said is that he received stolen goods. Nothing more.

    While the guy is a true shit, it never made legal sense for us to go after him. We went after Bradley Manning, rightly, but sadly, let him out far far earlier than he deserved. O was a jackass for letting that traitor out.
  • by DrXym ( 126579 )

    Assange is going to be extradited and he's going to be put on trial. He can try pull the "journalism" card out in defence when that happens. I doubt it will do any good considering what he is indicted with - 17 charges under the espionage act related to obtaining and disclosing security information.

    I also expect that as soon as Assange sets foot on US soil the authorities will smack him with some additional criminal charges related to his interference with the 2016 election which was certainly not journalis

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