No, really.
Story here.
The Espionage Act of 1917?! WHY IS THAT DAMNED THING STILL ON THE BOOKS?! :mad::mad::mad: It was the basis of Schenck v. United States – one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of American civil liberties! It should have been repealed as soon as the war-fever died down!
How does it apply, anyway, to Julian Assange, a foreigner, owing no allegiance of any kind to the U.S., and acting outside U.S. jurisdiction or territory?
I, too, have been wondering how we could reasonably claim authority over this guy. I’ll be interested in seeing what our resident lawyers have to say. Note that the article says they are “looking into” whether they can go after him. Maybe that’s what you do to put a little fear in the guy for future actions.
That would be my guess. These people are hard to get their hands on but the government has an interest in preventing leaks like the Afghanistan one, so they’ll prosecute the leaker (Bradley Manning) to the fullest extent and threaten to go after others in as many ways as they can.
Fear of what? Being chased by the USA? I doubt if that scares him.
A recent interview: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html
Only US citizens can be charged with espionage? That doesn’t make sense.
Presumably they could try the guy in absentia and then ask for extradition from wherever he is (which I suspect would be denied but who knows). At that point the guy just has to stay away from US controlled places.
He can be Roman Polanksi’s new BFF.
The Act is not about espionage, despite the name.
Man, the Colbert Bump just ain’t what it used to be.
Hold on now. As I look up 18 USC 793, it says (in a heavily edited way):
By my reading, that seems to be about espionage to me. Collecting or transmitting military information with the intent to injure the United States or for the benefit of a foreign nation seems like the very definition of espionage… what am I missing?
In addition, there is also 18 USC 798, which states:
I believe I saw in one of the discussions here a link to a document that talked about whether or not the Taliban could listen in to cell phone signals in Afghanistan. I’d say such a document would have an awful lot to do with the communications intelligence activities of the US or any foreign government. Also seems like a rather specific crime relating to espionage that is not as vague as simply criticizing the US government, as the OP seems to imply that is the only crime under the Espionage Act.
Not really.
The author of the article you linked to asserts that the NY Times reported that Government lawyers were considering charges under the Espionage Act, but she’s misstating the NYT’s reporting. That article actually says that a US official stated off the record that Government lawyers were exploring whether Assange could be subject to criminal charges, and then it separately states that “some lawyers” question whether the Espionage Act might apply. The lawyers speculating about the applicability of the Espionage Act are not the Government lawyers reportedly looking into criminal charges.
It does not appear that any Government official has been reported to have raised the Espionage Act in connection with Assange.
As a member of “The Family” I’m sure he had enough of pedo’s but what an interesting guy,obviously a genius, drugged and sexually abused by a weird cult this is what you get, nature or nurture I wonder.
I doubt that any country wants its classified materials being leaked to the rest of the world. As such, every nation in the world has a vested interested in playing ball with every other nation in the world when it comes to free-lance spies and activists.
Though, then again, there are probably plenty of countries who would be quite happy to protect someone like Assange as they get free material out of him that their own agents would have a harder time of getting since they aren’t Caucasian, English speaking, internet nerds.
Most countries will refuse extradition for political crimes. And since the particular crime created by this Act specifically refers to “information to be used to the injury of the Unites States or to the advantage of any foreign nation”, it’s about as political as you can get. No chance of extradition, I think.
Well, take a look at the UK’s Official Secrets Act of 1911:
Is that a political crime, too? Why is Britain’s law substantively different than the US’s?
Well since Wikileaks has no problem publishing a list of links to child pornography websites, I think he’ll be in good company.
Yes, that’s a political crime, too. Who said it was different? Have the British requested extradition of suspected spies?
Perhaps you are using the term “political crime” in a slightly different sense than I am. When I think of the term “political crime,” I generally see it as a pejorative term used to describe the prosecution of people who exercise generally recognized rights in a way that a government would prefer them not to: for example, publishing an article criticizing the president of Gondwanaland, and the President throws the person in jail; an opposition candidate daring to run for election for president of a dictatorship; and so on.
I would say things like treason, espionage, terrorism, or armed rebellion, are a different kettle of fish even though the state is essentially the victim in such cases. I do not know to what extent that such crimes are considered “political offenses” for the terms of the extradition treaty.
Absent specific knowledge of the treaty’s requirements, in terms of my personal views, I would say if a Russian spy broke the Official Secrets Act and fled to the United States, I would have zero problem with the US handing over the spy to the UK.
The point is that whatever Assange may ultimately be accused of isn’t espionage, at least in the traditional sense.
He didn’t hand secrets over to the Russians.
Actually, he didn’t really hand secrets over to anyone. He simply provided a forum in which somebody else did so.