My dear readers, to many people Julian Assange is a hero and a living legend. To me he is sort of a unprincipled person accepting stolen mail from post boxes, steaming it open, and spreading the results to anyone who will read and listen.
Julian you should have gone to the United Arab Emirates and set up permanent residence before you angered the most powerful nation on earth. (The UAE has no extradition treaty with the US and you would be safe in the desert kingdom.)
Julian the Americans know right where you are and think they can grab you at any time.
Espionage (based on the Espionage Act of 1917) will be the charge the Americans use to indict and put you in prison for good. If you are tried and convicted, you will be sent to Florence ADX prison in Colorado. You will live underground in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. You will have few or any rights or privileges. You might not even have access to a TV, newspaper, or visitors so you will never know what is going on in the world. You might not even know what day it is or what the weather is outside your prison. Your neighbors will be the vilest and most dangerous humans on the planet.
I was fortunate to go to law school in West Australia. There one had to take a crash course in Latin to study British common law cases going back to 1200 AD and even later. One also learns that it is important to put yourself into the shoes of your opponent in court and try to see what they are thinking.
What are President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder thinking right now? Both of them are superb lawyers at the top of their professions and law schools. Here is what they think and know:
1) They are relieved that alll you have released are low-level confidential documents. You released no high-level secrets that are what people end up doing life in prison for. You taught no one how to make a nuclear bomb, binary poison gas, etc. They know that you gave the enemies of the US like North Korea nothing they can use to make a sneak nuclear attack on the US, Europe, or South Korea.
2) They know that you did name covert CIA and other agents and subject them to execution.
3) They know that you did not permanently injure the USA.
4) They know that you did embarrass the hell out of the USA. But this all blows over with time.
5) They know that in US law a journalist who receives confidential information and publishes it is not liable to criminal prosecution. To make a case they are going to have to prove that you had an active part in obtaining the sensitive information that was leaked over the internet. They know this will be hard to do and even harder to sell to a jury.
6) If they had their way they would let the US Amry prosecute Private Manning and sentence him to a military prison for some years.
Sadly for you ( Assange) and the US government, the super-powerful American right wing is out to "lynch" Assange. If they had their way, a Predator drone would be orbiting about the mansion where Assange is staying in the UK. At the right moment a Hell Fire missile would be fired. A few seconds later the mansion and Assange would be vaporized. The US would deny to the end of time that they had anything to do with "this regrettable terrorist attack."
President Obama and Eric Holder are going to have to act to avoid charges of weaknesses and disloyalty to the US.
They know that Private Bradley Manning is the key to charging you and finding you guilty of espionage. If he will say that you helped him to obtain the information from a confidential US government data base which some 3,000,000 military and civilian Federal employees have access to, they have the basis to charge you.
If Private Manning was unlucky enough to be incarcerated at some US facility outside the US, he would be undergoing horrific torture right now including "water boarding," electric shock, etc. He would spend days with no sleep. No human could stand up to this level of pain and brutality.
Private Manning is confined at the US Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. He is being held in strict solitary confinement. Fortunately for him the media knows where he is. The authorities dare not engage in outrageous physical torture. Rather a psychological battle is going on to "break him down."
He is suffering sensory deprivation. Two groups of interrogators are "working him." One group is nasty and aggressive. They are assuring him that he will be executed for treason for what he has done, if he does not confess that Julian Assange helped him to get the information. They are giving him all sorts of terrible descriptions of what it is like to die in the US government death chamber at Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana. He is a young and inexperienced kid. He is terrified now.
Let us stop and analyze his chances of getting the death penalty from a military court. Several death sentences have been handed down to military personnel for horrible murders. No one has got the military death penalty for espionage in over 155 years (Since the American Civil War). In fact the last US government military execution was carried out in 1961; over 49 years ago.
Private Manning also may not understand that, if he goes to a General Court Martial, his jury will be seven military officers. Each one of these men and women will have a least a BA or BS degree. Despite the conservative nature of any potential jury, they will see that the documents released were confidential but not grave secrets of the USA. They will find him guilty of some charge and give him a sentence in the range of twelve years. (In the military prison system he will need to serve just 50% of that sentence.)
Private Manning also has another team "working him." These are nice men and women trying to help him. In the sensory deprivation environment, they will be the only friends and human contact that he has.
If this young man is not strong and full of principles and convictions, he will "break" and say anything the authorities want him to say.
If Private Manning says that Julian Assange helped him to get all of the information for the Wiki Leaks, a Federal indictment will follow. It most likely would be in New York City of the District of Colombia. On the other hand, prosecutors might be skeptical of juries there and bring the case in a place like Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, or Billings, Montana. Ultra-conservative juries in these jurisdictions would "buy" the government case and be out for revenge.
Under pressure from the right-wing, US prosecutors will want to seek the death penalty. This will not happen because no European government will send somebody back to the US to be executed. The US might try to get around this by pressuring Britain to deport Assange to Australia with the plane stopping on US territory where he can be "grabbed off the plane" and subject to the death penalty.
Let us assume that Britain gets the formal request to extradite Assange to the USA for the espionage prosecution. Britain has an "express extradition treaty" with the US. Most requests are handled quickly with few, if any, questions asked. Britain also has the Official Secrets Act that makes it a serious crime to reveal confidential government documents. On the face of it the extradition should go fast and painlessly.
I see this extradition request as being far more problematical for many reasons as follows:
1) The British deeply resent the US over this Express Extradition Treaty. Britons wanted in the US are rapidly handed over to the US. On the other hand if a US citizen is wanted for a crime in Britain, it takes years and often millions of dollars in legal expenses to get him/her back to Britain.
2) Assange's legal team will have the very valid argument that the extradition cannot be permitted because the crime is of a political nature and not a common criminal offense in both countries.
3) British sympathy and public opinion will be on Assange's side. The same can be said for the rest of Europe and the civilized world.
Even if the US gets Assange back to a US court, they will have a hard time selling the case to a jury. If they get a conviction the same can be said of all the long appeals all the way to the US Supreme Court.
If the US government wins all of these battles after spending literally hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and Assange ends up doing life without parole in Florence ADX Prison, they will end up with a Nelson Mandela on their hands. They will be hated and considered pariahs all over the world.
Julian you should have gone to the United Arab Emirates and set up permanent residence before you angered the most powerful nation on earth. (The UAE has no extradition treaty with the US and you would be safe in the desert kingdom.)
Julian the Americans know right where you are and think they can grab you at any time.
Espionage (based on the Espionage Act of 1917) will be the charge the Americans use to indict and put you in prison for good. If you are tried and convicted, you will be sent to Florence ADX prison in Colorado. You will live underground in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. You will have few or any rights or privileges. You might not even have access to a TV, newspaper, or visitors so you will never know what is going on in the world. You might not even know what day it is or what the weather is outside your prison. Your neighbors will be the vilest and most dangerous humans on the planet.
I was fortunate to go to law school in West Australia. There one had to take a crash course in Latin to study British common law cases going back to 1200 AD and even later. One also learns that it is important to put yourself into the shoes of your opponent in court and try to see what they are thinking.
What are President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder thinking right now? Both of them are superb lawyers at the top of their professions and law schools. Here is what they think and know:
1) They are relieved that alll you have released are low-level confidential documents. You released no high-level secrets that are what people end up doing life in prison for. You taught no one how to make a nuclear bomb, binary poison gas, etc. They know that you gave the enemies of the US like North Korea nothing they can use to make a sneak nuclear attack on the US, Europe, or South Korea.
2) They know that you did name covert CIA and other agents and subject them to execution.
3) They know that you did not permanently injure the USA.
4) They know that you did embarrass the hell out of the USA. But this all blows over with time.
5) They know that in US law a journalist who receives confidential information and publishes it is not liable to criminal prosecution. To make a case they are going to have to prove that you had an active part in obtaining the sensitive information that was leaked over the internet. They know this will be hard to do and even harder to sell to a jury.
6) If they had their way they would let the US Amry prosecute Private Manning and sentence him to a military prison for some years.
Sadly for you ( Assange) and the US government, the super-powerful American right wing is out to "lynch" Assange. If they had their way, a Predator drone would be orbiting about the mansion where Assange is staying in the UK. At the right moment a Hell Fire missile would be fired. A few seconds later the mansion and Assange would be vaporized. The US would deny to the end of time that they had anything to do with "this regrettable terrorist attack."
President Obama and Eric Holder are going to have to act to avoid charges of weaknesses and disloyalty to the US.
They know that Private Bradley Manning is the key to charging you and finding you guilty of espionage. If he will say that you helped him to obtain the information from a confidential US government data base which some 3,000,000 military and civilian Federal employees have access to, they have the basis to charge you.
If Private Manning was unlucky enough to be incarcerated at some US facility outside the US, he would be undergoing horrific torture right now including "water boarding," electric shock, etc. He would spend days with no sleep. No human could stand up to this level of pain and brutality.
Private Manning is confined at the US Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. He is being held in strict solitary confinement. Fortunately for him the media knows where he is. The authorities dare not engage in outrageous physical torture. Rather a psychological battle is going on to "break him down."
He is suffering sensory deprivation. Two groups of interrogators are "working him." One group is nasty and aggressive. They are assuring him that he will be executed for treason for what he has done, if he does not confess that Julian Assange helped him to get the information. They are giving him all sorts of terrible descriptions of what it is like to die in the US government death chamber at Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana. He is a young and inexperienced kid. He is terrified now.
Let us stop and analyze his chances of getting the death penalty from a military court. Several death sentences have been handed down to military personnel for horrible murders. No one has got the military death penalty for espionage in over 155 years (Since the American Civil War). In fact the last US government military execution was carried out in 1961; over 49 years ago.
Private Manning also may not understand that, if he goes to a General Court Martial, his jury will be seven military officers. Each one of these men and women will have a least a BA or BS degree. Despite the conservative nature of any potential jury, they will see that the documents released were confidential but not grave secrets of the USA. They will find him guilty of some charge and give him a sentence in the range of twelve years. (In the military prison system he will need to serve just 50% of that sentence.)
Private Manning also has another team "working him." These are nice men and women trying to help him. In the sensory deprivation environment, they will be the only friends and human contact that he has.
If this young man is not strong and full of principles and convictions, he will "break" and say anything the authorities want him to say.
If Private Manning says that Julian Assange helped him to get all of the information for the Wiki Leaks, a Federal indictment will follow. It most likely would be in New York City of the District of Colombia. On the other hand, prosecutors might be skeptical of juries there and bring the case in a place like Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, or Billings, Montana. Ultra-conservative juries in these jurisdictions would "buy" the government case and be out for revenge.
Under pressure from the right-wing, US prosecutors will want to seek the death penalty. This will not happen because no European government will send somebody back to the US to be executed. The US might try to get around this by pressuring Britain to deport Assange to Australia with the plane stopping on US territory where he can be "grabbed off the plane" and subject to the death penalty.
Let us assume that Britain gets the formal request to extradite Assange to the USA for the espionage prosecution. Britain has an "express extradition treaty" with the US. Most requests are handled quickly with few, if any, questions asked. Britain also has the Official Secrets Act that makes it a serious crime to reveal confidential government documents. On the face of it the extradition should go fast and painlessly.
I see this extradition request as being far more problematical for many reasons as follows:
1) The British deeply resent the US over this Express Extradition Treaty. Britons wanted in the US are rapidly handed over to the US. On the other hand if a US citizen is wanted for a crime in Britain, it takes years and often millions of dollars in legal expenses to get him/her back to Britain.
2) Assange's legal team will have the very valid argument that the extradition cannot be permitted because the crime is of a political nature and not a common criminal offense in both countries.
3) British sympathy and public opinion will be on Assange's side. The same can be said for the rest of Europe and the civilized world.
Even if the US gets Assange back to a US court, they will have a hard time selling the case to a jury. If they get a conviction the same can be said of all the long appeals all the way to the US Supreme Court.
If the US government wins all of these battles after spending literally hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and Assange ends up doing life without parole in Florence ADX Prison, they will end up with a Nelson Mandela on their hands. They will be hated and considered pariahs all over the world.
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