Are Assange's fears justified?

[struggle4progress]

15. This is just a stupid game. US free speech law will, with few exceptions, protect anyone who merely

received and published information. The exceptions typically involve revealing operational aspects of security: for example, exposing the identities of agents. So if Assange merely received and published some documents that didn't expose agents identities, he's probably home free. But US free speech law will not necessarily protect those who work in combination to steal information: so if (say) Assange was helping Manning to crack passwords to access files, his position might be rather different

The first point to be made, therefore, is that it very much matters, under US law, exactly what Assange did or did not do, and the law is usually heavily tilted on behalf of the publisher. We, of course, have no idea what exactly Assange did or did not do, because Assange -- despite all his high-falutin jabber about transparency -- is really a rather secretive fellow

Assange, and his mommy, and his supporters, are all out shrieking that Assange will be seized and, subject to extraordinary rendition, transported to America where he will face torture and death. The reality is that extraordinary rendition and torture have been applied only to the weak and unknown, and that the death penalty never falls in America on people with many friends. There is absolutely no chance that Assange could be subject to extraordinary rendition or tortured, nor is there the slightest chance he could face the death penalty. This fear of extraordinary rendition to the US, followed by torture and execution, is loudly the basis of his opposition to extradition to Sweden and also of his Asylum request to Ecuador: Sweden (we are told) is a spineless vassal of the US

And so the second point to be made is: Assange is something of a poseur. He planned to move the entire Wikileaks to Sweden, and visited the country a few years back with that intention, applying at the time for Swedish residency. His desire to dominate younger women, however, seems to have gotten the better of him, and his remarks at the time show his perspective clearly enough: "I may be a chauvinist pig of some sort but I am no rapist, and only a distorted version of sexual politics could attempt to turn me into one," he told us, and he further complained "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism. I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism!" Whatever the actual facts of his Swedish visit, we do not really hear from Assange any concern for the women involved in his Swedish affairs. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given that he has bragged in the past of leaving a trail of illegitimate baby-Assanges in his wake, four apparently being known in Australia alone

And a third point is also made here clearly: Assange shows a certain indifference to others. Bradley Manning has not and will not receive any significant help from Assange. Assange also seems to have cheerfully screwed over the folk who generously guaranteed his bail. As the evidence on the personal side mounts up, it becomes much easier to believe than Assange has also been callously indifferent to the fates of the lower-level leakers whose work has made Assange himself famous -- a charge now repeatedly made by various professional human-rights workers familiar with various specific cases handled by Wikileaks

The hypocritical noises made by Assange and his supporters become especially tiresome when one begins to understand how these noises prevent one from obtaining an accurate picture of the state of affairs. It will actually be more difficult to extradite Assange from Sweden to the US, than to extradite Assange from the UK to the US, not only because EU extradition law imposes limits on such successive extraditions, but also because the UK has an extradition treaty with the US that is much more favorable to the US than Sweden's bilateral extradition treaty is. Moreover, UK law would have regarded Assange's Wikileaks releases as clearly and unquestionably criminal, if the released material had involved UK military or diplomatic documents, rather than US military or diplomatic documents -- in a way that US law cannot possibly regard the release itself as criminal -- so there is a certain crudity in Assange's sojourn in the UK, whining of the dangers he faces from the US

I have no idea whether Assange is guilty of sexual assault in Sweden or guilty of crimes related to classified information in the US. The hurdle for proof, in either matter, would seem to be rather substantial, but both the Swedish and American justice systems would be perfectly capable of producing fair trials, if either matter ever resulted in charges and trial. The whining noise of Assange and his followers, however, is wearing thin