- As the daughter of a newspaperman, I grew up knowing just how important the free press is. Freedom of the press is essential to our democracy and I will always defend it.
Really, Amy?
Because you haven't said s**t to defend WIKILEAKS publisher Julian Assange.
Earlier this month, the founder and publisher of WIKILEAKS, Julian Assange, was arrested in London. Legal scholar Jonathan Turley (USA TODAY) has pointed out:
He disclosed a massive and arguably unconstitutional surveillance program by the United States impacting virtually every citizen. He later published emails that showed that the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of Hillary Clinton lied in various statements to the public, including the rigging of the primary for her nomination. No one has argued that any of these emails were false. They were embarrassing. Of course, there is not crime of embarrassing the establishment but that is merely a technicality.
For the US government, the first extreme bit of embarrassment came on Monday April 5, 2010, when WIKILEAKS released military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two REUTERS journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Not only was the US government responsible for that attack, they were responsible for the lies and the coverup that followed. When WIKILEAKS published the video, the truth was known.
- By the way. We're now at #Day12 of @JulianAssange_ locked up without any access to an attorney. How long is acceptable to you? #FreeAssange
Oscar Grenfell (WSWS) reports:
James C. Goodale, who served as general counsel for the New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case in the 1970s, wrote in the Hill that the indictment of Assange was “a snare and a delusion.”
Goodale stated that it “seems to have been written with a particular purpose in mind—to extradite Assange from England. Once he is here, he will be hit, no doubt, with multiple charges.”
Goodale and other lawyers have noted that individuals cannot be extradited from the UK to the US for “political offenses” under the existing extradition treaty between the two countries.
Espionage has historically been recognised as a political offense.
At the end of World War I, it was used to incarcerate socialist leader Eugene Debs, amid a growing revolutionary movement of the international working class. In 1971, the US administration of Richard Nixon unsuccessfully sought to employ provisions in the act to prevent the New York Times from publishing further material from the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the scope of US war crimes in Vietnam.
The government lost the case on the grounds that its demand violated the First Amendment provisions of the US Constitution.
It is likely that the initial US indictment has been narrowly limited to the computer hacking charges in order to avoid defence arguments that Assange faces prosecution in the US for “political offenses” and to ensure his speedy extradition.
Amy, you're no defender of the press. US House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard can defend Julian Assange, you can't. You're a hider, you're a croucher, you're a back stabber and you're a go-a-long. That's not a leader.
