Carr opines that Julian Assange is of little interest to the US by this time

[struggle4progress]

Philip Dorling
July 3, 2012

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr is confident the US will not seek to extradite Julian Assange, but his department has delayed and blocked the release of documents that would show what the government knows about the US espionage investigation into the WikiLeaks publisher.

Senator Carr yesterday argued that the US failure to make an extradition request to Britain over the past two years showed the Obama government had given up its pursuit of Mr Assange for releasing hundreds of thousands of classified US military and diplomatic reports.

''I'm not surprised that the Justice Department is not declaring the case closed,'' Senator Carr said yesterday. ''But if this were a priority for the <Obama> administration you would have seen legal action when very easily, very readily they would have been in a position to have taken it'' ...

''All the indications I've picked up from the public statements of US officials including the American ambassador in Australia is that they are a long way from having made a decision about this'', Senator Carr said. ''I'd be surprised if they were to pursue it … I am simply not persuaded that this is something actively engaging the Americans'' ...

www.theage.com.au/national/carr-opines-that-julian-assange-is-of-little-interest-to-the-us-by-this-time-20120702-21der.html

[TBF]

1. Yeah right ...

I am quite sure this lie is being floated to influence Ecuador that Assange would not be extradited and subjected to US death penalty. I am also sure Correa is not stupid enough to fall for it.

[snot]

9. Agreed; and/or (perhaps more likely) to influence public opinion.

[Luminous Animal]

2. Feinstein renews calls for Assange to be prosecuted for espionage.

Philip Dorling
July 2, 2012

http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-senator-calls-to-prosecute-assange-20120701-21b3n.html

THE head of the US Senate's powerful intelligence oversight committee has renewed calls for Julian Assange to be prosecuted for espionage.

The US Justice Department has also confirmed WikiLeaks remains the target of an ongoing criminal investigation, calling into question Australian government claims that the US has no interest in extraditing Mr Assange.

''I believe Mr Assange has knowingly obtained and disseminated classified information which could cause injury to the United States,'' the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dianne Feinstein, said in a written statement provided to the Herald. ''He has caused serious harm to US national security, and he should be prosecuted accordingly.''
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Senator Feinstein's call for the Obama administration to move ahead with plans to prosecute Mr Assange came as a US Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, publicly confirmed that ''there continues to be an investigation into the WikiLeaks matter''.

[struggle4progress]

3. Like everyone else, Feinstein is entitled to her opinion: as she has neither investigatory nor

prosecutorial nor adjudicatory authority, her call for prosecution has no force, although her belief that Assange "has caused serious harm to US national security" might be founded on facts known to her in her capacity on the Intelligence Committee

[KoKo]

5. And that's the same Intelligence Committee who lied us into Iraq (for the most part)

They do what they are told to do. And you know that...

[struggle4progress]

11. Only 2/5 of the current committee was serving on it in the 108th Congress, and

almost 10/17 of the membership of the committee in the 108th Congress is not serving on the committee today

[Luminous Animal]

7. US Justice Dept. Boyd confirmed that there continues to be an investigation into the WikiLeaks

[JDPriestly]

12. Assange and the world cannot take the chance on this.

What actual damage did the Wikileaks do to anyone?

Wikileaks simply told the truth.

Now when our politicians lie to us -- as Bush and his crew did to get us to kill a lot of people in Iraq -- damage happens, serious damage.

But no one has been able to claim that the Wikileaks revelations caused damage. Telling the truth can't cause damage.

That is because the truth simply is. Telling it, talking about it, disclosing it, doesn't change it that much. It simply brings into the open for all to see things that were previously known only to a few.

If Wikileaks was treason, then is the telling the truth treason?

Seems to me that keeping secrets about what our government did in the past aids and abets our enemies in that, when our enemies reveal our secrets to us, we lose confidence in our government.

If our government wants us to trust it, then it needs to tell us the truth about what it has done and what others are doing. Lying to a people and then telling them that they are living in a democracy. Now that is treason.

There is no democracy without fully informed voters.

Wikileaks was not treason, and it certainly was not espionage. Keeping too many secrets from the American people is treason. Makes us distrust our government.

[KoKo]

4. Yes...thanks for the post...I just heard about this

from DiFi...on RT.

We all know Assange is wanted and will be extradicted here to be made an example of along with Bradley Manning.

[girl gone mad]

21. Corrupt war profiteer. n/t

[treestar]

6. Would be interesting to find out the potential charges and the statutes of limitations on them

As for Oz, why can't they take him back? And re-take Mel Gibson, while they're at it.

[treestar]

8. the 1917 Espionage Act

"That language is not only the right thing to do policy-wise but puts the government in a position to prosecute him," Smith said. Under the Espionage Act, anyone who has "unauthorized possession to information relating to the national defense" and has reason to believe it could harm the United States may be prosecuted if he publishes it or "willfully" retains it when the government has demanded its return, Smith said.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/29/AR2010112905973.html

Wikipedia Espionage Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917

Pentagon Papers
In June 1971, Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo were charged with a felony under the Espionage Act of 1917, because they lacked legal authority to publish classified documents that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers.[56] The Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. United States found that the government had not made a successful case for prior restraint of Free Speech, but a majority of the justices ruled that the government could still prosecute the Times and the Post for violating the Espionage Act in publishing the documents. Ellsberg and Russo were not acquitted of violating the Espionage Act, but were freed due to a mistrial based on irregularities in the government's case.[57]
The divided Supreme Court had denied the government's request to restrain the press. In their opinions the justices expressed varying degrees of support for the First Amendment claims of the press against the government's "heavy burden of proof" in establishing that the publisher "has reason to believe" the material published "could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation".[citation needed]
The case prompted Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. to write an article on espionage law in the 1973 Columbia Law Review. Their article was entitled "The Espionage Statutes and Publication of Defense Information". Essentially they found the law to be poorly written and vague, with parts of it probably unconstitutional. Their article became widely cited in books and in future court arguments on Espionage cases.[58]
United States v. Dedeyan in 1978 was the first prosecution under 793(f)(2) (Dedeyan 'failed to report' that information had been disclosed). The courts relied on Gorin v. United States (1941) for precedent. The ruling touched on several constitutional questions including vagueness of the law and whether the information was "related to national defense". The defendant received a 3-year sentence.[59][60]
In 1979–80, Truong and Humphrey were convicted under 793(a), (c), and (e) as well as several other laws. The ruling discussed several constitutional questions regarding espionage law, "vagueness", the difference between classified information and "national defense information", wiretapping and the Fourth Amendment. It also commented on the notion of bad faith (scienter) being a requirement for conviction even under 793(e); an "honest mistake" was said not to be a violation.[60][61]
[edit]

It actually sounds more hopeless than "prosecuting Bush for war crimes" and there would be tons of avenues of appeal.

[ljm2002]

10. If this case is of so little interest to the US...

...then I am curious, why is it still of such compelling interest to you? You post several times a day to remind us all that Assange has nothing to worry about from the US, and that he should just go and "face the music" w.r.t. the (non-)charges in Sweden.

I'm sure there are many, many other low-level (possible) sex offenders in Sweden, in the US, all over the planet. Yet you continue to hammer on this one case, paradoxically trying to convince us all that the case is of no consequence.

If you think it's just a publicity stunt by Assange, then why go along by continuing to hammer it? Just let it go, it will fade into obscurity as you think it should.

Just a thought.

[struggle4progress]

13. Getting the facts right should matter, to anyone who wants to change the status quo:

what is at stake is not some abstract truth, of interest for mere philosophical reasons; rather, the habit of getting the facts right is a critical discipline for thinking accurately and usefully about the actual state of affairs we face

To encourage opponents of the status quo to think in sloppily counterfactual ways is simply to disarm the opponents of the status quo. The status quo automatically has the advantages of military and police superiority, the advantages of the habits of the public, the advantages of economic power and the structures mobilized by that economic power. Against those advantages, the opponents of the status quo have their ability to persuade and organize effectively . The ability to persuade is damaged by every inaccurate claim made; the ability to organize effectively depends on persuasion but it also depends on clear accurate thinking

If you want to claim bullshit doesn't hurt us, that's your choice: but I say the bullshit from Assange and his supporters does hurt us

[ljm2002]

14. There is an avalanche of BS out there...

...from our government, from other governments, from the Wall Street bankers, from multinational corporations, from crriminals and from pillars of society alike. Yet your one-person crusade here on DU is designed to fight BS, to encourage us all to engage in "clear accurate thinking".

LOL

I smell BS

[struggle4progress]

15. Your view seems to be that, due to an abundance of BS, still more BS never hurts:

I disagree

Good day!

[ljm2002]

17. And you seem to think...

...you can present your obsession with Assange as simply an attempt to help us poor, benighted DUers become better at critical thinking.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that is implausible to say the least.

You make several posts each day on the topic of Assange, trying to buttress your argument that (a) he is a sexual predator and a coward; and (b) he has nothing to fear from the U.S. Any evidence to the contrary is summarily dismissed, based on ... your firm belief in (a) and (b). Oh, yes, and your firm belief that the U.S. government or its representatives would never, ever LIE to us about their actions and/or their intentions -- in spite of things like, oh, the WikiLeaks documents that very, very clearly show otherwise.

Good day to you too.

[struggle4progress]

19. I have no opinion whatsoever regarding the Swedish allegations against Assange:

I do, however, note that Assange, his lawyer, and his supporters have been dishonest on certain points. In particular, at the time Assange fled Sweden, Swedish prosecutors had been trying (for about a week and through his lawyer) to arrange further interviews with him regarding the allegations

Similarly, I have no opinion whatsoever regarding the question of whether Assange could eventually face charges in the US. It rather depends of exactly what Assange has done. If (say) he merely served as a conduit to various media organizations, of material leaked by (say) Manning, then it is hard to see how Assange could be charged for leaks if the publishing news media are not charged -- and (of course) the publishing news media will not be charged. But it might be a rather different matter if (say) Assange actively helped someone (Manning, say) break military website passwords in order to access such material: Federal authorities might reasonably regard that as participation in a criminal conspiracy; in that case, an indictment might be forthcoming, though the fact that none has appeared after several years is perhaps also informative. In either case, his own witness, Swedish prosecutors, and English judges all agree that extraditing him from Sweden to the US would be more difficult than to extradite him to the US directly from the UK, despite his shrieks to the contrary

The pattern of dishonesty begins to create a certain presumption against Assange IMO

[ljm2002]

20. Ah yes, his "shrieks to the contrary"...

...a phrase that reeks of bias.

I'm done here.

[struggle4progress]

23. ... Julian Assange .. could be at "real risk" of the death penalty or detention in Guantánamo Bay

if.. extradited to Sweden on accusations of rape and sexual assault, his lawyers claim ...
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange 'faces execution or Guantánamo detention'
Skeleton argument outlined by Australian's defence team claims he could face rendition to US if extradited to Sweden
Esther Addley
Tuesday 11 January 2011 09.21 EST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/11/julian-assange-wikileaks-execution-gantanamo

Yeah, that's shrieking IMO and it's all BS

[girl gone mad]

22. Your motives here are fairly transparent.

[bobthedrummer]

16. LOL! K&R-sure!!!!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Laughable doesn't even begin to describe his statement.

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr is confident the US will not seek to extradite Julian Assange, but his department has delayed and blocked the release of documents that would show what the government knows about the US espionage investigation into the WikiLeaks publisher.

I love irony.

''All the indications I've picked up from the public statements of US officials including the American ambassador in Australia is that they are a long way from having made a decision about this'', Senator Carr said. ''I'd be surprised if they were to pursue it … I am simply not persuaded that this is something actively engaging the Americans''

Given the long history of American "diplomacy", not to mention what came out because of the leaks, Mr. Carr is a) an idiot. or, b) a highly overpaid liar with no credibility.