I see I have encountered your typical, non-substantive argument. Take a side issue, misrepresent someone’s argument (I never said I was for the “murder” of “innocent” Americans), then cry foul that someone cracked a joke (sniping jaywalkers) in response to your bizarrely outlandish slippery slope argument (teachers being assassinated for sending an anti-terrorism letter to Hamas), and then make a big to-do about how straw man arguments are SO unacceptable.
As far as I can tell, you haven’t set forth a single factually accurate, coherent argument so far in this thread. If you have something substantive to say, I’m happy to respond.
Well, since the courts don’t seem to be here in Great Debates arguing their side of the issue, I think I will content myself with the non-snarky answer that yes, indeed, you were using the term “political crime” in a different sense than I was.
If you say that court generally will not allow extradition for espionage, I believe you. I acknowledge that’s the law, I just don’t agree with it. As I said before, I see nothing wrong whatsoever with the UK, France, Japan, or dozens of other countries with modern justice systems asking the US to extradite someone who is in our country who is suspected of committing espionage against the requesting country. Unless there is some reason why political crimes should not be subject to extradition that hasn’t been explained so far, I’d say that maybe some changes to our extradition treaties may be called for.
I see I have encountered your typical, non-substantive dismissal. Wave your hands, ignore the linked articles that support another’s arguments, then cry foul because your strawman was snapped in half early and you thought it was gonna go over big, and then claim that the other person had NOTHING anyway.
Your attempted refutation of the orders to assassinate/murder/terminate Americans is laughable, as there are two links provided that back up the assertion that this is government policy, and who it can be applied to. If you aren’t going to take the time to read the links, you can’t just declare that they don’t apply to the discussion. And if you had read the links, I’d think you’d have a better argument than “you don’t have any argument”, since all the facts I referenced in my hypothetical scenario are included in the linked articles.
That sure was a good try at hand waving away arguments you have no legitimate counter to, tho. I can tell you’ve had a lot of practice at that tactic. How’s that working out for you?
Political crimes have never been subject to extradition because the government of country A has generally taken the view that it is not for them to side with the government of country B against the people of country B, or vice versa. They have generally also accepted that it is reasonable for the government of country B to adopt a similar attitude with respect to them. Hence, there is mutual agreement that political offences are not extraditable. This rule generally pre-dates specific extradition treaties.
On exactly the same reasoning, revenue offences have never been extraditable.
The rule is long standing, and dates from a period when there was no expectation that governments would be, or pretend to be, democratic; that governments would respect the political rights of the people; or that people would have constitutional or democratic ways of registering their opposition to their governments. But it also reflects one of the fundamental principles of state sovereignty; that the government of country A should not be involved in the internal political affairs of country B.
Now that there are, in fact, a number of more-or-less democratic governments around the world, part of the basis for the rule could be questioned. However governments generally do not want to see any change. If Country B could seek extradition on the basis that it was a democracy which respected political rights and people did not have to resort to crime to achieve political objectives, then the courts in country A would find themselves making having to assess and make judgments about such claims. This is the last thing they are equipped to do, or want to do; it’s a political and diplomatic minefield. There is no appetite for this among the governments of the world.
A more likely prospect of change, as I say, is in relation to terrorist offences, carving them out and deeming them to be “not political”. But it would be impossible to deem offences against official secrecy laws to be “not political”; as we’ve already noted, the laws which constitute the offences are usually framed in explicitly political terms.