'This Week' Exclusive Julian Assange On Edward Snowden: "Asylum is a right we all have"

[Catherina]

Transcript:

...

ASSANGE: Look, there is no stopping the publishing process at this stage. Great care has been taken to make sure that Mr. Snowden can't be pressured by any state to stop the publication process. I mean, the United States, by canceling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia. Is that really a great outcome by the State Department? Is that really what it wanted to do? I think that every citizen has the right to their citizenship. To take someone's principal component of citizenship, their passport, away from them is a disgrace. Mr. Snowden has not been convicted of anything. There are no international warrants out for his arrest. To take a passport from a young man in a difficult situation like that is a disgrace.

He is a hero. He has told the people of the world and the United States that there is mass unlawful interception of their communications, far beyond anything that happened under Nixon. Obama can't just turn around like Nixon did and said, it's OK, if the president does it, if the president authorizes it--

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's not what he's saying, sir. He has also broken the law. Let me bring that now to Jesselyn Radack, who is also here with me right now. Julian Assange mentioned Edward Snowden's father, who has also written -- his attorney has written a letter to Eric Holder, the attorney general, saying that he believes that his son would be willing to come back to the United States if he would not be detained or imprisoned prior to trial, if he would not be subject to a gag order, if he would be tried in the venue of his choosing. Do you think it would make sense for Snowden to return under those circumstances?

RADACK: I actually don't. I have represented people like Thomas Drake, who was an NSA whistle-blower, who actually did go through every conceivable internal channel possible, including his boss, the inspector general of his agency, the Defense Department inspector general and two congressional committees, and the U.S. turned around and prosecuted him. And did so for espionage and threatened to tie him up for the rest of his life in jail. I think Snowden's outlook is bleak here, and instead of focusing on Snowden and shooting the messenger, we should really focus on the crimes of the NSA. Because whatever laws Snowden may or may not have broken, they are infinitesimally small compared to the two major surveillance laws and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution that the NSA's violated.

...

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-wikileaks-julian-assange/story?id=19521380

[truedelphi]

1. I am confused... Where is Assange? At the beginning of this piece,

Stephanopolous says he is in the Embassy - in London I believe it is said.

isn't Assange in Ecuado9r? And I believe that he is free to come and go wherever he wants to in that nation - though he may go back to an Embassy building in Ecuador in order to be hooked up to Skype an d other technology for interview purposes.

[dipsydoodle]

2. He's in their Embassy in Knightsbridge London - just round the corner from Harrods.

Coincidentally I just watched that on our 8 o'clock here in London.

What made you think he was in Ecuador ?

[longship]

3. He is in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

He cannot leave there because he would be immediately arrested and extradited to Sweden. So he cannot even get to an airport to get to Ecuador.

He's stuck there and cannot leave just as Snowden is (as reported) stuck in the Sheremetyevo transit zone. Neither is getting out without some outside influence which nobody seems to want to exert.

[CtDemoFarmer]

4. "He has also broken the law"

another example of journalism in the 21st century. I thought one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Oh I forgot this is ABC.

[drynberg]

5. Just how many times did G. STEPHANOPOULOS interrupt Julian Assange?

What a rude ass way to treat a guest...is this part of the Yella Journalist Credo? That is while you're workin' on pre-judging any one who blows the whistle on those in Power...nasty.

[Civilization2]

6. Clearly the rise of the Corporate-Military Surveillance State is a threat to a free & open society.

The defenders of "national security" are defenders of this rise of corporate power.