Oh wait, the article says the guy's name is Mark Stephens. But I'm still suspicious...
Hang him first, try him later.
Australian citizen being passed secrets from an American serviceman and then released. So how is this spying or espionage? If someone here was passed secrets from France would France then charge you? I think they’re clutching at straws. Now the NYT, there’s an outfit that needs some slapping down.
Shemp Smith could hardly control his excitment about Julie being allowed to leave the jail. He wore that story out tonight.
Dog and pony show here. I am dubious about our countries ability to prosecute a foreign citizen on this. The military fag is our only solid case.
First the military man that collected the documents and provided them to Wikileaks should be tried for treason. This is an absolute.
However, I expect the media to leak anything that is truthful that is given to them. Whether it is the National Enquirer, Drudge, or the New York Times (barf!) and I don't consider the media publishing information as treason.
If Wikileaks is tried for treason, then the “Government” had better try for treason all the other “traditional media” and websites that have posted links to Wikileaks and/or summarized any of the cables that were part of the original tratorous act.
If the government doesn't do that, then they are going after Assange because they view him and his website as encouraging people to leak information, which I feel is stiferling “legitimate whistleblowers” who are not leaking classified information but information that powerful people or companies don't want distributed.
Again, the obtaining and turning over to a “media outlet” classified information is treason. A “media outlet” publishing information that is truthful and has been leaked to it, is a slippery slope against freedom of the press and a potential step in big brother censoring everything from what Monica Lewinski was doing in the Oval Office to what the Watergate burglars were doing.
That’s a tough case to prosecute.
What nation was he committing espionage for?
If they wanted to be consistent, they’d first indict the New York Times, The Washington Post and scale model manufacturers that somehow obtain plans of top secret aircraft and ships before anybody has even heard of them, never mind seen them.
He’ll be brought before some Carter/Clinton/Obama appointee, it will turn in to a circus with the liberal media walking around lecturing us all about what “Freedom of the Press” is and isn’t, finally Assange will be found not guilty and get invited to a Hollywood party with a who’s who liberal morons.
This is not “spying?” Assange merely helped make public documents public available to the taxpayers that funded them. Every journalist and talk show, including Hannity and Beck, who have quoted these documents are just as guilty as he is (though less honest). Without Assange, this dirt would be hidden for decades.
The worst he’s gonna get from the U.S. will be a $5 mill book contract. The best could go into the teens!
The only question to be asked is: which country is going to get him first? The Israelis are not above snatching people off the streets of London, they’ve done it to renegade nuclear scientists before. Vegas isn’t taking odds on whether Julian is going to live to see 2012.
Well... this’ll make him a far easier target to get to. Hopefully somebody will.
Cue the ACLU.
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
Hrm... insofar as I know he’s not in the employ of any foreign government; doesn’t that put a crimp, legally speaking, in accusing him of espionage?
And prosecution is NOT the way to go in any case. Best way to deal with this is quietly in the dead of night a few months or even years from now. Piano wire? A car bomb? Ricin from an umbrella needle? Just hire one of those aging, outta work KGB agents and be done with Assange.
I doubt they’ll ever even charge him, much less request extradition to the US, but if they do, I also very seriously doubt it will ever come to trial.
Proving espionage by Assange will be difficult at best in a jury trial. Calling him some kind of enemy combatant is a stretch (and that’s putting it kindly)....