To:
Ms Caroline Kennedy
Hon. Ambassador
to Australia
The premise of the UK high court in granting the U.S. demand that Assange be extradited is that the extradition treaty between the countries accepts the good-faith use of justice in either country. The same premise allegedly binds Australian-U.S. extradition requests.
Yet clearly political cases do arise in which one government wants to punish someone who embarrassed some political person, group or coalition. Of course, a ridiculous pretext is provided, and in this case the U.S. CIA and the Clinton gang prevailed. Assange's 'real' offenses: Possibly tilting the election against Clinton by disclosing certain tawdry facts. (She suggested droning him as "a joke." This crudity should be matched against her hot-mike belly laugh when she was told Moammar Khadafy was dead. Atheists and agnostics everywhere see nothing wrong at laughing at an enemy's death.)
Then followed an aggressive campaign by security agency politicians to obscure Assange's 2016 disclosures by calling them potential Russian "disinformation." Before that, he had embarrassed the Pentagon with footage of a U.S. helicopter killing journalists and others (admittedly, this incident may not have been deliberate, but his view was that of a typical civilian and not that of someone who had experienced heavy combat).
Another awful offense was Assange making Clinton's life difficult with the release of a large cache of diplomatic reports -- though these were only classified "confidential, with no foreign distribution permitted. As a former newsman, I thought it very refreshing to see these little sketches of what diplomats really think (maybe).
One of the "background accusations" is that Assange is not a "real publisher" but a head of a non-state verbal terrorist organization. He was also smeared by politicians who pointed out that he is a leftist and associated mainly with leftists. Once his back was to the wall, Assange's only recourse was to get help from the left, especially the hard left. No one else would help him. Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. Regardless, if leftist ideology is defined as a crime or as treason, we don't live in a democracy. (As your father and brother Robert well knew, there ARE traitors on subversive missions for foreign states. Quite a few are communists or crypto-communists. Most traitors, the security agencies say, are just looking to pick up some extra cash.)
When the UK seized Assange as he was expelled from the Ecuador embassy, the U.S. charges were so dodgy that the UK told the U.S. Justice Dept to invent something better, or they wouldn't be able to hold him once he'd served his 2-year sentence for flight from arrest in a prison where "terrorists" are sent. Later, once a UK judge barred Assange's extradition on grounds he'd already taken too much mental and physical strain, and was in precarious health, the U.S. was permitted to submit new "evidence" to the effect it would guarantee that his medical care would be sufficient. That "evidence" was accepted by judges and later affirmed by a Tory home secretary who was in a fight to become Tory prime minister. She lost that intrigue.
Note that Assange was not in America and was not American when his purported "crimes" occurred. Initially, the extradition demand was based on his being charged as a cyber-terrorist and so he was to be treated as an international terrorist, even though that charge came long after the events in question. The former CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, has publicly said that once Assange published a "secret" list of CIA spy tricks, he and Wikileaks had to be brought down as not journalists but terrorists. This is a public admission that the Justice Dept. charges are a mere substitute for Pompeo's peeve. Trump could do little, because if he did something Republicans might easily have joined Democrats to convict him in a Senate trial. The tricks that were exposed were largely "classified," which in Washington is not terribly meaningful. Also some of the spy tricks had already been made public -- clandestinely turning on your cell phone to eavesdrop -- but the CIA had not admitted to using this trick. There may have been some real security breaches, but no U.S. arrest warrant was issued for Glenn Greenwald. In fact, in my estimate, the CIA wanted the file slipped to Wikileaks so that it would have a political reason to "get" Assange.
So then federal prosecutors, as they are wont to do, pressured someone in their clutches to "confess" that Assange had helped his reputed fellow cyber-terrorist to hack a defense computer network and steal the information. The U.S. explained that as Assange is Australian, he had no right to freedom of the press. They did not bring up that they were abridging the free press right of many Americans to read his materials.
So, consider this scenario: One of Australia's publishers -- which are all non-state actors that use computers to release data capable of verbally abusing, say, an Australian prime minister -- publishes data objectionable to the PM. He or she does this from a base in Iceland. But soon after she or he arrives in the U.S. for some ordinary reason, that person is arrested and held for extradition on thin charges, which serve the Aussie prime minister's image as a tough guy who protects his turf.
We might laugh, and say that that would never happen. But based on the precedent set by America to extradite people who are wanted by America for political crimes, it would be very difficult for the "land of the free" not to comply with this vicious practice.
Supposing the Assange extradition were to go through, any journalist who is in America but has crossed the Tories on purported national security stories, will be forced to stand trial in Britain. The situation is really bleak once you know that Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, squelched Assange's request while her press control bill was about to go to Parliament. She did not recuse herself from the Assange decision. The bill is far more draconian against press freedom than the early 20th Century Official Secrets Act.
Note that very reputable human rights organizations everywhere, including Amnesty International, deplore this maneuver by the United States and the way Assange is continually mistreated. After all, if he must be held to avoid flight risk, why not use an ankle bracelet and close monitoring by surveillance experts? This extreme maltreatment shows bad faith by Conservative British authorities. The erosion of the American political system toward the style of the Establishment system in Britain is a blight on true democracy.
Best of luck in your new assignment.
Ms Caroline Kennedy
Hon. Ambassador
to Australia
The premise of the UK high court in granting the U.S. demand that Assange be extradited is that the extradition treaty between the countries accepts the good-faith use of justice in either country. The same premise allegedly binds Australian-U.S. extradition requests.
Yet clearly political cases do arise in which one government wants to punish someone who embarrassed some political person, group or coalition. Of course, a ridiculous pretext is provided, and in this case the U.S. CIA and the Clinton gang prevailed. Assange's 'real' offenses: Possibly tilting the election against Clinton by disclosing certain tawdry facts. (She suggested droning him as "a joke." This crudity should be matched against her hot-mike belly laugh when she was told Moammar Khadafy was dead. Atheists and agnostics everywhere see nothing wrong at laughing at an enemy's death.)
Then followed an aggressive campaign by security agency politicians to obscure Assange's 2016 disclosures by calling them potential Russian "disinformation." Before that, he had embarrassed the Pentagon with footage of a U.S. helicopter killing journalists and others (admittedly, this incident may not have been deliberate, but his view was that of a typical civilian and not that of someone who had experienced heavy combat).
Another awful offense was Assange making Clinton's life difficult with the release of a large cache of diplomatic reports -- though these were only classified "confidential, with no foreign distribution permitted. As a former newsman, I thought it very refreshing to see these little sketches of what diplomats really think (maybe).
One of the "background accusations" is that Assange is not a "real publisher" but a head of a non-state verbal terrorist organization. He was also smeared by politicians who pointed out that he is a leftist and associated mainly with leftists. Once his back was to the wall, Assange's only recourse was to get help from the left, especially the hard left. No one else would help him. Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. Regardless, if leftist ideology is defined as a crime or as treason, we don't live in a democracy. (As your father and brother Robert well knew, there ARE traitors on subversive missions for foreign states. Quite a few are communists or crypto-communists. Most traitors, the security agencies say, are just looking to pick up some extra cash.)
When the UK seized Assange as he was expelled from the Ecuador embassy, the U.S. charges were so dodgy that the UK told the U.S. Justice Dept to invent something better, or they wouldn't be able to hold him once he'd served his 2-year sentence for flight from arrest in a prison where "terrorists" are sent. Later, once a UK judge barred Assange's extradition on grounds he'd already taken too much mental and physical strain, and was in precarious health, the U.S. was permitted to submit new "evidence" to the effect it would guarantee that his medical care would be sufficient. That "evidence" was accepted by judges and later affirmed by a Tory home secretary who was in a fight to become Tory prime minister. She lost that intrigue.
Note that Assange was not in America and was not American when his purported "crimes" occurred. Initially, the extradition demand was based on his being charged as a cyber-terrorist and so he was to be treated as an international terrorist, even though that charge came long after the events in question. The former CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, has publicly said that once Assange published a "secret" list of CIA spy tricks, he and Wikileaks had to be brought down as not journalists but terrorists. This is a public admission that the Justice Dept. charges are a mere substitute for Pompeo's peeve. Trump could do little, because if he did something Republicans might easily have joined Democrats to convict him in a Senate trial. The tricks that were exposed were largely "classified," which in Washington is not terribly meaningful. Also some of the spy tricks had already been made public -- clandestinely turning on your cell phone to eavesdrop -- but the CIA had not admitted to using this trick. There may have been some real security breaches, but no U.S. arrest warrant was issued for Glenn Greenwald. In fact, in my estimate, the CIA wanted the file slipped to Wikileaks so that it would have a political reason to "get" Assange.
So then federal prosecutors, as they are wont to do, pressured someone in their clutches to "confess" that Assange had helped his reputed fellow cyber-terrorist to hack a defense computer network and steal the information. The U.S. explained that as Assange is Australian, he had no right to freedom of the press. They did not bring up that they were abridging the free press right of many Americans to read his materials.
So, consider this scenario: One of Australia's publishers -- which are all non-state actors that use computers to release data capable of verbally abusing, say, an Australian prime minister -- publishes data objectionable to the PM. He or she does this from a base in Iceland. But soon after she or he arrives in the U.S. for some ordinary reason, that person is arrested and held for extradition on thin charges, which serve the Aussie prime minister's image as a tough guy who protects his turf.
We might laugh, and say that that would never happen. But based on the precedent set by America to extradite people who are wanted by America for political crimes, it would be very difficult for the "land of the free" not to comply with this vicious practice.
Supposing the Assange extradition were to go through, any journalist who is in America but has crossed the Tories on purported national security stories, will be forced to stand trial in Britain. The situation is really bleak once you know that Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, squelched Assange's request while her press control bill was about to go to Parliament. She did not recuse herself from the Assange decision. The bill is far more draconian against press freedom than the early 20th Century Official Secrets Act.
Note that very reputable human rights organizations everywhere, including Amnesty International, deplore this maneuver by the United States and the way Assange is continually mistreated. After all, if he must be held to avoid flight risk, why not use an ankle bracelet and close monitoring by surveillance experts? This extreme maltreatment shows bad faith by Conservative British authorities. The erosion of the American political system toward the style of the Establishment system in Britain is a blight on true democracy.
Best of luck in your new assignment.
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