fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Assange headed for Gitmo?

Julian Assange is finally in custody. Not for releasing classified information to the press mind you, but for “sex crimes” that he hasn’t been charged for yet. But they got him. And through him, they (the power structure, the establishment, be it the British government, the U.S government, the Swedish government, etc) will hope to […]

Julian Assange is finally in custody. Not for releasing classified information to the press mind you, but for “sex crimes” that he hasn’t been charged for yet. But they got him. And through him, they (the power structure, the establishment, be it the British government, the U.S government, the Swedish government, etc) will hope to get to WikiLeaks.

For an international outcry so concerned about “the law,” there has certainly been a variety of extra-judicial attempts to kill the messenger. So says Glenn Grennwald this morning:

…whatever you think of WikiLeaks, they’ve never been charged with a crime, let alone indicted or convicted. And yet, look at what has happened to them. They’ve been essentially removed from the internet, not just through a denial of service attacks that are very sophisticated, but through political pressure applied to numerous countries. Their funds have been frozen, including funds donated by people around the world for his—for Julian Assange’s defense fund and for WikiLeaks’s defense fund. They’ve had their access to all kinds of accounts cut off. Leading politicians and media figures have called for their assassination, their murder, to be labeled a terrorist organization….

If they want to prosecute them, they should go to court and do it through legal means. But this extralegal persecution ought to be very alarming to every citizen in every one of these countries, because it essentially is pure authoritarianism and is designed to prevent the internet from being used as its ultimate promise, which is providing a check on unconstrained political power.

Politicians who command mass media attention — like Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. John Peter King in New York and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich —  have called Assange “a terrorist” in recent days (Gingrich actually used the words “enemy combatant”), and that he should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” We might be seeing the first real test of the First Amendment in regards to the Global War on Terror since the Patriot Act was signed by President Bush in October 2001.

In the meantime, Greenwald is right about all of the hysteria. Today, we heard that the Australian government is closing down an entire postal office that receives WikiLeaks mail; Visa has joined MasterCard and Swiss Bank and Pay Pal in its morally righteous stand against dirty WikiLeaks money. Funny, they don’t have the same problem with kids who, say, use mommy’s credit card to rack up thousands on Farmville, but that’s another story …Then there is Assange’s “arrest” on a warrant, which is not related to any criminal charges, per say, but to an angry Swedish prosecutor who demands he answer more questions about the consensual sex he had with two women last summer. News just in that he has been denied bail and will have to fight a lengthy battle against extradition. The details of this case are certainly awkward, and the Swedes ought to have the ability to wrap this thing up after four months, but does it rise to the level of an international “manhunt”? Jail? You decide.

It really does make one wonder what is in the 99 percent of the State Department cable trove that has yet to be made public.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here