Below is my column in the BBC on the historical and potential legal significance of the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Much of the prosecution could turn on whether Assange is a journalist. Notably, Assange just received a European journalism award from the European parliamentarians. Assange is this year’s recipient of the 2019 GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information.
In the meantime, there are some interesting comparison between the Assange and Zenger cases in the long-standing debate over what constitutes press freedoms.
Here is the column:
The arrest and expected extradition of Julian Assange has set into motion what could prove to be the most important free speech and free press case in our history. Or not.
Assange has been charged with a single count of participating in the hacking of intelligence computers with Chelsea Manning to reveal controversial intelligence operations in the United States.
For many, Assange is a journalist, a whistleblower, a hero. Yet for others in Washington, he is the man who embarrassed the establishment in Congress, the intelligence community and even the media.
Those powerful foes are likely to bring considerable pressure to deny Assange a platform for highlighting the operations that led to massive civilian losses and undisclosed military strikes, the very type of information disclosed in the celebrating “Pentagon Papers” case involving the New York Times in the Vietnam War.
For historians in both Great Britain and the United States, there should be something eerily familiar in this controversy.
Almost 300 years ago, the foundations for American protections of the free press were laid in the trial of John Peter Zenger.
The case has striking similarities to the pending prosecution of the Wikileaks founder.
In the case, the recently installed British governor William Cosby was the subject of an anonymous pamphlet that detailed his many abusive and corrupt practices in New York and New Jersey, from stealing Indian lands to pilfering the Treasury to rigging elections.
Cosby ordered four editions of the Zenger’s New York Weekly Journal publicly burned and arrested Zenger. He then installed a biased judge who held Zenger’s defence lawyer in contempt.
Despite using every means to punish Zenger for what Cosby called “scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections”, the colonial jurors balked and acquitted him.
It was the defining moment for the colonies and ultimately led to far stronger protections of journalists in the United States than in Britain, as embodied in the first amendment to the US constitution declaring that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom… of the press.”
Much has changed in the United States for the press, but perhaps not as much as we claim.
The Justice Department crafted the charge to evade the constitutional concerns over the prosecution – and the unresolved status of Assange.T
By alleging that Assange was given a password and helped set up a cloud for Manning to share the data, the government is charging him not with the distribution of the material but actively participating in its theft.
However, the unsealed indictment in Alexandria, Virginia, is remarkably thin on evidence that Assange played such an active role or used the password in question.
Setting up a cloud for sharing information can easily be viewed as simply facilitating the anonymous disclosure from a source. Where reporters once arranged for drop spots, there are now digital equivalents for such exchanges.
Rather than exploring reasons and effort to reveal controversial intelligence operations, Assange could be forced to confine his defence to the more mundane charge of “computer intrusion”.
Yet, the indictment is conspicuously thin on the evidence of that role. The government alleges that Manning gave “a portion” of a password “to crack” which “was stored as a ‘hash value’ in a computer file that was accessible only by users with administrative-level privileges”.
However, the government then says not that Assange arranged to crack the code but only that “cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a username that did not belong to her”.
Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.
Assange is likely to face more charges once he is in the United States.
A superseding indictment might encompass the role Wikileaks played in publishing emails stolen from the Democratic Party during the 2016 election campaign.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for their part in the hack and alluded to Wikileaks in those indictments, although not by name.
However, thus far, no Americans have been indicted for any alleged conspiracy with the Russians and, putting aside the narrative, Assange is so far being prosecuted for the same type of conduct as people messing with Netflix passwords.
But for now, the US only wants to show under extradition laws that there is a reasonable basis for believing that Assange committed a crime in the United States. The government also wants to avoid any criminal charge that could result in the death penalty.
Nevertheless, the Justice Department is likely to do what the British government failed to do with Zenger.
It will focus its charges on insular acts like sharing passwords or hacking. By doing so, the government can file a motion (what’s called a motion in limine) to prevent Assange from raising his motivations or the disclosure of the secret operations.
It could be declared immaterial. The jury will not hear the type of evidence that Zenger’s lawyers forced into his trial. Assange would look simply like some slightly creepy-looking Australian hacker.
US Attorney Tracey McCormick in Virginia could succeed if she keeps any counts focused on such technical and narrow acts.
It would be like reducing the whole of Macbeth to the final scene where Macduff beheads the King, and therefore revealing nothing about his motivation or history.
Reduced to Act V, Macduff simply looks like a blood-soaked regicidal maniac, rather than an avenging hero saving the country from a tyrannical leader.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, Wikileaks could not be vanquished until the Great Assange came to Capitol Hill.
He is now likely on his way and the trial could make the Zenger trial look like a model of transparency and accuracy.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
NEWSFLASH –
We’re all going to Obama’s house tomorrow.
The trail has been discovered and it leads right to Obama’s doorstep.
Oh, and Sir Richard Dearlove will be there too, having been recently added to the guest list.
________________________________________________________________________
The Obama Coup D’etat in America is the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious scandal in American political history.
The co-conspirators are:
Rosenstein, Mueller/Team, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Kadzic, Yates, Baker,
Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Priestap, Kortan, Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove, Steele,
Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper, Kerry,
Hillary, Huma, Mills, Brennan, Clapper, Lerner, Farkas, Power, Lynch, Rice, Jarrett,
Sessions, Obama et al.
One can go on-line and buy toilet paper with Assange’s face printed on it. The logo on the bottom says: Three spots on the wall by Who Flung Foo.
Assange should be granted full immunity in exchange for the full truth for the benefit of America.
Transactional immunity–Yes! Blanket immunity–No!
Murder of Seth Rich – July 10, 2016
“The murder of Seth Rich occurred on Sunday, July 10, 2016, at 4:20 a.m. in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Rich died from two gunshot wounds to the back. He was murdered by unknown perpetrators for unknown reasons,…
The 27-year-old Rich was an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and his murder spawned several…theories…including the…claim that Rich had been involved with the leaked DNC emails in 2016,…”
Julian Assange’s Lawyer Found Dead After Being Struck by Train
August 19, 2016
“John Jones 48, one of Britain’s top human rights lawyers, who represented Julian Assange was killed last Monday, when he was run over by a commuter train. The death is being called a suicide.
British Transport Police were called to the West Hampstead train station in North London at 7:07 AM on Monday April 18, 2016 after a man was struck by a train. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene and his death is not being treated as suspicious. The event occurred almost one month to the day that the first batch of Clinton emails were released by his client from WikiLeaks.
Jones worked on the same team as actor, George Clooney’s wife Amal. He specialized in extradition, war crimes and counter-terrorism; taking cases from the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Cambodia.
Jones lived in an expensive home in North London, with wife Misa Zgonec-Rozej, 40 a director of an international law consultancy, and his two children.
The news is particularly disturbing, as Democratic Strategist and CNN host, Bob Beckel appeared in a FOXTV interview and called for the assassination of Julian Assange (or more accurately, “Just kill the sonofabitch!”)
Assange is believed to be planning a strategic “October Surprise” leak of a Hillary Clinton email, just prior the US Presidential Election. It purportedly contains information that will definitively put her behind bars.”
– Alexandra Bruce
http://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/julian-assange-s-lawyer-found-dead-after-being-struck-by-train-27812/
Jen Robinson @suigenerisjen:
“If America could burn Julian Assange at the stake, it would do so. That is the real sadness of what this situation has revealed: that when it comes down to shutting up those who inconvenience us, we’re all brothers and sisters under the skin.”
https://twitter.com/suigenerisjen/status/1118213511535108097
(Jen Robinson in Julian Assange’s lawyer.)
Maybe one version but then that would mean accepting a series of falsehoods such as ‘Our Democracy’ when what is meant is ‘Our Socialism.’ I find it impossible to embrace that particular group as brothers, sisters, or fellow citizens.
My group the independent self governing Citizens of this Constitutional Republic would rather place Assange on a brother or sister island as a statue at least the same height of the Statue of Liberty.
An old video, but worth watching nonetheless:
Jesselyn Radack Testifies Before EU Parliament Committee
SOOO HOT and a good lawyer
her “unradackted” twitter feed is good
https://twitter.com/JesselynRadack
You are starting to sound like President Obama. But seriously, do you think she is hotter than Kamala Harris?
Kamala ugly in my book. and very boring.
Tulsi, beautiful, interesting.
Jessalyn, hot, fascinating
https://londonreal.tv/e/nsa-whistleblower/
President Obama was definitive about Kamala’s hotness. It is a fair point that Tulsi wasn’t an attorney general, so he never made a direct comparison between the two. On the other hand, President Obama and the Choom Gang know all about the Hawaiian chicks. It is possible that he was damning Kamala by faint praise. It’s all kind of confusing. Then you bring up these white Europeans. It is starting to make me wonder whether you are a Republican, or a Democrat who has broken ranks with President Obama, as divisive as you are.
i had to look that up, never heard of it. choom gang. lol
https://theweek.com/articles/475179/choom-gang-9-juiciest-details-from-barack-obamas-days-pothead
I have always been a Republican but I feel out of electoral politics due to cynicism, for most of my adult life. Then, Trump appealed to my baser instincts, and dragged me back in.
I have voted for and given money to numerous Democrats, but they were all my personal cronies. As they say, “all politics is local” and most of them were what people call more “conservative” than the average Republican, in private that is.
Mr. Kurtz, it’s a little known fact, but your link explains why that crazy rascal Obama picked Diamond Joe Biden as his vice president.
From your link:
“A favorite hangout was a lush hideaway called Pumping Stations, where [the Choom Gang] parked their cars, turned up Blue Oyster Cult on their stereos, ‘lit up some ‘sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds,’ and washed it down with ‘green bottle beer’ . . . The Choom Gang’s preferred mode of transportation was a Volkswagen bus affectionately known as the ‘Choomwagon.'”
Diamond Joe’s wild days pounding brewskis and blasting Night Ranger while washing his 1981 Trans Am in the White House driveway are the stuff of legend:
https://politics.theonion.com/shirtless-biden-washes-trans-am-in-white-house-driveway-1819570732
Those dudes sure knew how to hang. Word on the street is that Barack and Diamond Joe both had Kamala Harris posters in their bedrooms. Diamond Joe in the White House in 2021 would be just like the old times.
And another thing from your link. He didn’t talk about it much, but Obama was massively hard core and thought that Bill Clinton was a bogart because he didn’t inhale:
“[Obama] was apparently known for starting pot-smoking trends within the group. He coined the term “total absorption,” or TA. Basically, anyone who exhaled smoke prematurely would be assessed a penalty, and skipped the next time the joint was passed around. His other innovation was the “roof hit,” in which the Choom Gang would roll up the windows of a car and smoke inside. Once all the weed was gone, they would tilt their heads back and suck in the remaining smoke from the car ceiling.”
We will probably never know whether was Hillary was an honorary member of the Choom Gang. Word around the boys at the FBI watercooler is that Hillary started her private file server, and Obama made sure that Hillary deleted those 30,000 emails, so that it wouldn’t get leaked.
“her “unradackted” twitter feed is good”
Yes.
“New Whistleblower Protection Office Is Under Investigation for Retaliating Against Whistleblowers”
.
https://twitter.com/WhistlblowrNews/status/1118369910537838592
https://m.govexec.com/oversight/2019/04/new-whistleblower-protection-office-under-investigation-retaliating-against-whistleblowers/156314/
“What Whistleblowers Are Telling Investigators”
‘“It’s a crooked system where literally the fox is guarding the hen house,” said Jay DeNofrio.’
Adding this. We’ll see:
“The office is now headed by Tammy Bonzanto, who previously served as an investigator on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Her tenure has received mixed reviews. DeNofrio, for example, is still concerned by what he calls her lack of transparency. Other observers are cautiously optimistic that her leadership could get the office back to its original mission.
““We’re confident they have good-faith leadership now,” said GAP’s Devine. “The question is how much professional freedom she’ll have.””
(As I recall, Devine and Radack parted company a few years back. I’m not sure where things stand now.)
somebody mentioned John Kiriakou. Another former CIA patriot and truth teller. He served his time in jail for his leak. OK, sometimes that is necessary. Or perhaps not. but he is strong like a bull, not a mixed up kid like Manning.
I still fail to see why repeatedly waterboarding like over a hundred times was necessary to gain any actionable intelligence over a certain detainee at Gitmo. It wasn’t, actually, he gave up what he had after the first instance, and then they waterboarded him another 83 times after that. Sick! Thank you John Kiriakou for exposiing this travesty to the public.
Did the sickos engaged in needless torture go to jail?
“I still fail to see why repeatedly waterboarding like over a hundred times was necessary to gain any actionable intelligence over a certain detainee at Gitmo.” -Mr. Kurtz
It wasn’t. And people like Mitchell and Jessen — and others — should spend time behind bars.
“Settled” — but not settled at all, IMO.
Psychologists Behind CIA ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Program Settle Detainees’ Lawsuit
August 17, 20172:52 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/17/544183178/psychologists-behind-cia-enhanced-interrogation-program-settle-detainees-lawsuit
I wonder how many Sidney Gottliebs there are running around in the assorted spook programs today.
And as is true of the torture program, the full extent of the damage done by Gottleib is not yet known and probably never will be.
“SIDNEY GOTTLIEB was living vindication for conspiracy theorists that there is nothing, however evil, pointless or even lunatic, that unaccountable intelligence agencies will not get up to in the pursuit of their secret wars.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-sidney-gottlieb-1080920.html
Then and now.
“Thank you John Kiriakou for exposiing this travesty to the public.”
Yes. Many thanks.
The editorial headline, “Assange will be punished for embarrassing figures” (the establishment) was spot-on.
His journalistic disclousures have given us essenitial information about what our government is doing which is betraying us.
Ms. Brellochs. You beat me to it. I agree completely.
It’s my understanding that the extradition requires that Assange be charged only with what is presented as the reason for the extradition. But those charging him might not have any care and will charge him with whatever they choose in order to serve their masters.
The U. S. would have to waive the Rule of Specialty in the 2003 extradition treaty, and the U. K. would to go along with that waiver, in order for new charges against Assange to be added on after the U. K. grants the U. S. extradition request.
The more likely scenario would be that the U. S. brings new charges against Assange before the U. K. grants the extradition of Assange to the U. S. The real question is exactly “what” new charges might be brought against Assange.
What figures would those be? If it’s the one’s I’m thinking of especially since it was the same government we got rid of in 2016.
Aside from his gratuitous reference to Assange as “some slightly creepy-looking Australian hacker”, which is the trope of all the smearing, irrelevant propaganda that has been directed against Assange and Wikileaks to instill disgust, I am happy to see that Professor Turley has drawn this hugely important connection between Assange and the case that led to the birth of freedom of speech in U.S. law, and to its general conception as an inviolable democratic principle that people the world over who are striving to live in free, democratic societies have sought to emulate.
It is certainly conceivable, if not likely, that the district court will suppress any information that Assange might seek to present on the issue of whether he was acting as a publisher, and thus deprive him of this crucial, legally relevant defense, and then that the appellate court will claim that the trial court’s doing so did not deny him a fair trial. The federal courts, with few exceptions, and especially after 2001, have long abdicated their status as an actual co-equal branch of government which supposedly checks the overreaching of the other two branches, and has kowtowed to the executive branch in matters of so-called national security with lickspittle abandon. They have made themselves bootlickers, with their “deference” to the executive branch, and their “political question” doctrines, and so forth. Today, the Pentagon Papers case, as one observer put it, seems almost like it took place in another country, if not in a parallel universe. The secrecy claims of the intelligence agencies, the President, the State Department et al., and their sanctimonious claims always to be acting on behalf of the national security, particularly when they are suppressing evidence of war crimes and official misconduct, are taken as gospel truth by the courts, if they are not gleefully agreed with. We cannot, at this point, expect much here.
However, if this happens, then the unconstitutional deprivation of Assange’s defense must be forced to be an issue in the case with as much vociferousness as it takes to get the point across, inside and outside the courtroom. The typical argument that prosecutors make that politics is irrelevant to a criminal charge and so should be excluded from the defense’s proof is both a straw man and rank mendacity. It is not “politics” that Assange would seek to present, but facts concerning the legal issue of whether his actions, not his motives (although of course those are relevant) were protected by the First Amendment. Facts adduced to support his defense that he was acting as a publisher are legally relevant to the character of what he is alleged to have done in relation to the government’s computer (with little proof, as Turley notes). The manual drop analogy that Turley mentions here should be pursued ruthlessly.
But needless to say, this cannot be counted on to be enough. I would go one farther (there’s nothing to lose), and argue that the information that the government was secreting inside the “hacked” computer did not belong to it because it was not properly classified and thus constituted a kind of conversion of public property, not to mention a clear violation of the executive order on classification that the indictment cites. To wit, EO 13526 (12/29/09) says as follows in relevant part (note (1) in particular):
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail
to be declassified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
While the recitation here is more ceremonious than substantive (because there are as yet no civil or criminal penalties for classifying information for these reasons), this defense is capable of being legitimately asserted (ask Mark Zaid about this), although it does not have much going it for it, at least not yet. But it should start to be asserted, and Assange has no choice but to assert it. It goes to the heart of the abuse of the government’s authority (and every government’s authority in the history of the world) to control information for legitimate reasons. The abuse of classification authority, and secrecy power generally, must be laid bare if any defense of freedom of speech is to succeed.
Nice analysis.
Professor Turley, your ongoing commentary on Robert Barr and Julian Assange is spot on. What we have here is oxes being gored. The oxes don’t like it one bit. So they react in the way oxes do.
The use of secret FISA courts to covertly monitor (carefully avoiding the term “spy” so as to not further disturb the oxen) American citizens is the context of presidential election transcends politics. It affects all of us, but the powerful would rather that we not see it. Hence the attacks on Barr. And coming next, the attacks on the people that have the temerity to work for Barr.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Mueller report will be the investigation scope, including the original scope memos and the interpretations thereunder. We can expect, though, that the scope was carefully limited to avoid areas that would embarrass the powerful oxen.
As you note, Professor Turley, the same process is playing out with the Assange indictment. Assange was fine so long as he was goring the other oxes, but it all changed with the WikiLeaks disclosures in 2016. Hence the scope of the present indictment. It is carefully designed to achieve two objectives. First, to discredit Assange and to serve as a warning to those who might follow in his footsteps. Second, to punish Assange while avoiding those annoyingly embarrassing questions about the actual content of the WikiLeaks disclosures and the public’s interest therein.
These are important issues. Bipartisan issues, that affect all Americans. The powerful oxes are doing what oxes do, and you are helping us understand how they do it.
Both you and Wortmanberg are spot on.
Well done!
It would appear the government wants to limit this to a simple case of computer hacking without any light being shed on why it was done. Is this a case of hacking because that’s where the classified information is stored? Or is this a case of hacking because that’s where the evidence of illegal activity is stored?
Since Obama commuted Manning’s sentence, what’s to prevent Trump from commuting whatever sentence Assange gets? And would CNN actually attack Trump for upholding freedom of the press?
link: https://shadowproof.com/2019/04/16/fbi-affidavit-in-assange-case-shows-government-is-criminalizing-publication-of-afghanistan-war-logs/
Thanks, Jill. Here’s an earlier posting of his:
https://shadowproof.com/2019/04/11/justice-department-charges-julian-assange-with-computer-crime-but-alleges-conspiracy-to-abet-espionage/
“It was evident for well over a month that Assange’s arrest could happen very soon, especially when Manning chose to publicly fight her subpoena. The editorial boards of major news organizations, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, sat in silence. They were apparently too concerned anything they said might affect their access to the halls of power. They have never really considered Assange to be a journalist, and believe Manning is a national security leaker, who deserved to be punished.
“Now, there are many more details that are known. The “Which side are you on?” moment has come. The world will see who stands up for freedom of the press and who stands with President Donald Trump’s administration in their dangerous assertion of U.S. power.” – Kevin Gosztola
Again:
“Now, there are many more details that are known. The “Which side are you on?” moment has come. The world will see who stands up for freedom of the press and who stands with President Donald Trump’s administration in their dangerous assertion of U.S. power.”
The situation is much worse than many people realize. Much worse.
I will link to is a good analysis of why this indictment, even as it now stands directly involves freedom of the press in another post below.
For now, we need to pay attention to the fact that this case is brought in the EDVA, THE place for espionage/govt. whistleblowing charges. Few if any defendant wins against USGinc. in that court. Defendents are not allowed to enter “classified” information in their own defense. (if you go to casandra fairbanks,twitter you will see a detailed explanation of what happens in this court given by John Kiriakou, the only person in the CIA to be convicted concerning US participation in torture (he revealed it, not participated in it). Further, if you don’t like Casandra because she is right wing, you can see the same information posted by a left wing journalist, Elizabeth Vos on her twitter page.
The US has involved several nations in the case against Assange. Millions of dollars were spent so far on this case by these nations, a lot of illegality was performed by these nations, and I think none of this adds up to a simple indictment of computer crime w/a maximum sentence of 5 years! So far we know that the UK, Ecuador, Germany and Sweden have advised, been threatened, spent millions, received millions, “lost” vital documents and violated their own nations rule of law in order to “get” Assange.
Many other journalists who do investigative reporting on the crimes of the powerful and of governments around the world, most certainly are speaking out about this arrest as a severe threat to freedom of the press. I also believe it is a threat against all people in our nation who dare criticized or expose wrong doing by the powerful.
The courtier media is in full swing to convince everyone that Assange is a filthy, lying, horrid man. They are repeating lies as facts, as they do for all wishes of the deep state, whether it be a coup change in various nations whose resources this govt. would like to have, or wars which help war contractors make money. They are on the case! When you see this, questions should immediately be raised. Why are the paid liars on this case? Why are we believing people who present us with information which gets people killed and destroys our own nation from within? The reason is, if we can be made to hate another person we are much more likely to accept the loss of their rights. Once the hated person’s rights are lost, we realize too late, that in this process, our own rights are gone as well.
We have seen this before. We really need to stop falling for this BS and stand up for freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Once that is gone, it is gone–this includes you Democrats! You will not have that right any longer either.
Democrats are smart. They only invoke rights when it favors their side. They have little respect for the rights of others. That’s how smart power-grabbers always proceed. Plead individual rights when you are weak, and plead democracy when you are strong. It’s ever this in liberal systems like ours.
Assange did not favor them, so they want to get him. Assange also embarassed the Pentagon. Trump has to deliver this opportunity to the Pentagon who wants blood. It’s unfortunate.
I appreciate the article, and i admire Assange above most other journalists at this time, by far. He is not creepy, he is psychologically strong, and his long asylum in the embassy under bogus rape charges showed how strong he is.
Manning, I feel bad for he-she, something of a pawn, stuck in solitary too long. While Hillary can flaunt classified information standards and get away with it and ride high on the hog. Double standards!
m.k.,
Here I am speaking to my fellow citizen who is not a member of the power criminal class.
Powerful criminals will be allowed to get away with any crime unless they piss off someone more powerful than them or have somehow become inconvenient.
It is the non-powerful, Democrats and Republicans alike who will lose the right of free speech and freedom of the press because of this case. To support the destruction of one’s own or another’s most basic rights is completely depraved!
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=12109
While we’re at it, if these are the rules per the editorial board of the Kansas City Star. It’s time to amend the Missouri penal code. Going forward, it’s an affirmative defense in assault cases that the recipient of the assault was a reporter or editor. Ditto vandalism cases.
1. If his activity is convenient to the Democratic Party, he is.
2. If his activity is inconvenient to the Democratic Party, he isn’t.
This isn’t that difficult.
“I think the government doth protest too much”
Assange is not the name he was born with. Au Sang.
(music)
Au Sang can you see?
By the dawn’s early light.
What so proudly we hail.
At the twighlights last gleeming.
And the rockets red glare.
When it bombs your’ dumb lare.
You are a dumb dong.
And we can’t stand your song.
If Assange is extradited to Amerika he may never see the inside of a court room. If he does it will be a Kangaroo trial and he will be confined never to be seen or heard from again in a supermax prison in the US gulag. He broke no laws, he published the truth but under our fascist government the truth cannot be published. Free Assange! Jail the jailers!
“If Assange is extradited to Amerika . . ..”
Now we know where the wack-jobs stand.
Jay,
The theme of the “deranged Vietnam vet” seemed to have reached a peak with movies like Taxi Driver and Black Sunday.
It’s mostly gone out of style, but there are still some hanging on to it.
Florence ADX is full of cons who will love Assange for what he did. I hear it’s cleaner and more peaceful than most other prisons too. I would want that place if I were him. he will be a freakin celebrity there.
When the Washington mob is nearly unanimous in calling for Assange’s head, it is time for the rest of us to be more critical of the government’s case.
Yes!!