Wikileaks is currently making hay out of the fact that several prominent figures on the right of American politics called for the assassination of Julian Assange. Specifically, they feel that a crime has been committed. At the time of the remarks, I believe Assange, an Australian citizen, was resident in Britain. Specifically:
In calling for the assassination/murder of Assange, did Palin commit a crime by American standards.
In calling for the assassination/murder of Assange, did Palin commit a crime by British standards?
If I’m based in Country X and call for the murder of Individual Y who is current in Country Z over the Internet, where was the crime committed, if there was one? Have international agreements, treaties and legal cases sufficiently adjusted to the Internet that an answer to this can definitively be given, or not?
(Yes, I’m aware that, even if technically a crime was committed, the chances of anything coming to pass legally are extremely slim.)
Well, part of the question would be if the person making the statement has it within their scope to actually set in motion such an assasination, or someone could reasonably foresee that sequence of events (e.g. king Henri saying *“will no one rid me of this troublesome cleric” *in front of loyal lackeys), or else were they just lashing out wishing someone were dead, taking advantage of how the SDMB Mods do not run the Real World.
Correct, its just dumb luck that Sarah’s crosshairs led a random lunitic to shoot her targeted foe in Arizona. It’s not like any of her followers are lunitics that she has zombie queen control over. Assange has nothing to worry about, the guys just overly parinoid and should just learn to trust our leaders.
I’m no fan either, but you are wise to be skeptical. It is being misrepresented. The quote was from a typical blame laying piece on an issue guaranteed to resonate with her support base, but not a call to assassination IMHO. The full text is here. She said: “Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?” Criticizing the administration for NOT carrying out an assassination isn’t illegal even if it could be proven that was what she meant unambiguously by “pursuing with urgency”. OTOH it looks like the Calgary police opened an investigation into a political analyst who made much morespecific comments as a guest on a Canadian political talk show. In that case he said “should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.”
Sarah’s not denying what she said or that she was quoted out of context. What she does deny is the interpetation of it as a call for an assassination. And of course it’s all about interpetation isn’t it? That the crux with “code” terms.
OK, thanks for the replies. This is what I thought; Palin has committed no crime. But this Fox pundit is more ambiguous (abridged transcription):
Aside, can anybody attempt to answer the final part of my question? Supposing a crime has been committed (and I presume that American and British law in this regard is so similar, that supposing in the abstract whether a crime has been committed or not makes sense in this case), where exactly has the crime been committed? This is a question I’ve wondered for some time, independent of the Wikileaks stuff.
I’m no fan of Palin’s but this accusation is ridiculous. Crazyhorse has the quote - Palin said Assange should be “pursued with urgency” and there was nothing in the broader context of the article to hint that this was a codeword for killing him.
Meh…OBL’s been in CIA custody for years, for the purpose of recording scary boogeyman-style messages every election cycle. Now that GWB & Co. are history, the Obamaistas don’t know what to do with him – last I heard, they’ll probably give him a recording contract and secretly let him live out his natural life on Svalbard.
Exactly. The political left seems to have developed an obsessive-compulsive hatred of Sarah Palin. The venom being spewed at her is really over-the-top.
It’s a lot like how the right hated Bill Clinton, really.
The Fox guy was an idiot to call Assange a traitor. Assange owes no loyalty to the United States, so he can’t “betray” it. Still, you could very appropriately call him an enemy of the United States.