US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amendment Rights

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/24/assa-j24.html

by silasdb • 6 years ago

153 148 6 years ago

I've heard people say the US constitution lays out limits of what the US government can do, as opposed to rights of US citizens.

So, if the US government wants to hold you in detention, they have to tell you why, not because you have that 'right', but because they are bound by law to do so in all circumstances irrespective of what passport you're carrying.

Again, I've only heard this before -- I'm not at all a legal scholar. Can anyone confirm or deny this interpretation and possibly give more reading material around it?

bumby8• 6 years ago

The first ten amendments are literally called the "Bill of Rights". It limits what the government can do because doing so would be in opposition to the rights of US citizens.

"Rights of citizens" and "limits of government" are two sides to the same coin.

Edit: should have used “person” rather than “citizen”. I was mirroring the verbiage used by the OP and should have been clearer. E.g. non-citizens are still granted Miranda rights

sokoloff3• 6 years ago

I think GP is asking whether these are limits in government as compared to all people or limits against only US citizens.

Symmetry• 6 years ago

"Citizen" is never mentioned in the Bill of Rights. It's all "The Government shall make no law" or "the people" or "the accused" which apply equally to any other person within the United States. Even undocumented immigrants are protected by the Bill of Rights and legal non-citizen residents certainly are.

i_dont_know_5• 6 years ago

But it's not framed as "rights of citizens" in the actual wording of the Constitution (it was intended to be, yes, but that's another topic).

For instance, the first amendment doesn't say "All citizens have the right to...", but rather says "Congress shall make no law..." Subtle difference, but important.

Similarly, other parts of the bill of rights refers to "people", not just citizens. Generally, for issues that happen entirely within the United States, it's interpreted to really mean "people". So if you're in the US on a work visa and get arrested, you are allowed to plead the 5th and it's supposed to be honored.

It gets weirder when events aren't entirely contained in the US. If I write an article critical of the US government while outside the US, do I have constitutional protection against US retribution? If so, does that come from my passport, or from the fact that the US government just isn't allowed to do that to anyone, period?

That's more what I'm asking.

DiogenesKynikos• 6 years ago

In general, the individual liberties set out in the Bill of Rights apply broadly to all people, in all their interactions with the US government. The Bill of Rights does not use the word "citizen," but does in several places use the broader term "person." For example,

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger;

It also uses the phrase, "the people." For example, in the 4th Amendment,

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In the case of the 1st Amendment, which concerns freedom of speech/religion/the press, it appears to be a general prohibition on government interference with freedom of speech, with no specification of whose freedom of speech is meant:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

the6threplicant• 6 years ago

They are inalienable rights first. It has nothing to do with citizenship. If I'm on US soil then I have (roughly) the same right as a US citizen. That's what so great about the Bill of Rights. (note there some specific clause for US citizens but they are labelled as such eg US president etc)

jack_h• 6 years ago

It should also be noted that historically these were restrictions on the federal government only (see Barron v Baltimore). This is a pretty important distinction since states were not limited here. In practice most states have their own constitution which generally follows the federal constitution to some extent.

Of course after the 14th Amendment was passed the legal theory of selective incorporation under the Due Process clause was developed in the early 20th century. Interestingly we are still in the process of incorporating the first eight amendments to the states 150 years later; e.g. the second amendment is the most recently incorporated amendment, the third still hasn't been incorporated though.

afthonos• 6 years ago

(Sorry, no links, but this is fairly uncontroversial US history:)

There was a big debate around the bill of rights. Proponents felt it was essential, because otherwise the government would violate those rights. Opponents either didn’t feel this was a justified fear, actively wanted more state power, or claimed that enshrining certain rights explicitly implies that they were the only ones reserved to the people.

That last objection was the basis for the Tenth Amendment.

That said, in practice, what the government can and can’t do is decided not by the text of the Constitution but by the string of precedents that control its legal interpretation.

In other words, reading the Constitution gives you at best a very basic intuition of how the US political system works, and this intuition will often be very very wrong.

So, you’re theoretically right, but it doesn’t affect the practical reality on the ground even in principle.

raxxorrax3• 6 years ago

While true, if the constitution is not fulfilled in the eyes of the citizens, it can just flush all those legal governmental proceedings down the toilet, including the whole body of government. Some even argue it to be their duty.

That is the basis of every democracy. Consent of the governed and all that.

Psyladine2• 6 years ago

or claimed that enshrining certain rights explicitly implies that they were the only ones reserved to the people.

Which is the situation we're in. If you don't have a positively asserted specific legal right, it doesn't otherwise exist, except in how limited your behaviors are by law.

"The sky is the limit" vs "the limit is the sky"

abtinf• 6 years ago

This is not a credible source. Has there been any reporting from a major paper?

romaaeterna3• 6 years ago

You can watch the recorded video where the quote was taken from and be your own reliable source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwK1tPdaHkY

sokoloff3• 6 years ago

That’s not an original source to prove the claim in the headline. It’s someone making a claim that the DoJ is making that claim. (A video of “B says that A said” is not the same as an original video or text from A, particularly when A and B are adversaries.)

paulnechifor• 6 years ago

I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. The website even admits to being controlled by a communist organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_the...

SauciestGNU• 6 years ago

And the New York Times is controlled by a capitalist organization. That doesn't make a source intrinsically more or less trustworthy.

93po• 6 years ago

What about communism makes a source untrustworthy?

NeedMoreTea3• 6 years ago

UK govt should be refusing all US extradition requests, and suspending all trials until it is accepted Sacoolas be extradited to the UK.

orf• 6 years ago

I came to comment exactly the same thing. Someone who murdered a UK citizen then fled justice has been refused extradition by the USA, but the UK is supposed to extradite Assange?

Come on.

ur-whale• 6 years ago

You're assuming the UK government has an actual choice in the matter. I don't think they do.

umanwizard• 6 years ago

Nobody is accused of mudering anyone. Recklessly but accidentally causing someone else's death is not "murder", at least in common-law jurisdictions.

mytailorisrich3• 6 years ago

The US, like other countries, do not want to set 'bad' precedents on diplomatic immunity. Afaik she had diplomatic immunity and despite the speeches on both sides the US will never extradite her because of the precedent that would set.

In addition, in her case I suspect they also want to avoid any disclosure of the activities of her husband.

The point actually also (or especially) applies in the UK: If she did have diplomatic immunity then what is the basis to prosecute (or even just sue) her in the UK?

raxxorrax3• 6 years ago

Procecuting a foreign citizen that helped uncover war crimes is by all measures of a sane mind a much worse precedent. And that even while accounting for the "what goes around comes around"-rules of diplomacy.

NeedMoreTea3• 6 years ago

Both the Foreign Office and the US State Department appeared to accept that she no longer had diplomatic immunity, and she wasn't a registered diplomat anyway -- she was the Intelligence officer's wife. Or at least that's what the Foreign Secretary was claiming at the tail end of last year. The surprise is either of them getting immunity for an airbase intelligence role outside London in the first place. I've seen several reports questioning whether the immunity was valid at all.

But having returned to the USA there is no longer any immunity. A crime is still there to be investigated and prosecuted, an extradition could proceed.

Additionally US-UK extradition agreements both under Thatcher and later under Blair have been notable for their imbalance, but that seems rather academic here.

A balanced discussion of the issues underlying: https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/sacoolas-affair-diplomatic-im...

seanhunter• 6 years ago

Firstly she was not a diplomat so it seems difficult to claim diplomatic immunity.

Secondly, the US have already established a precedent that seems very relevant to this where they claimed that a foreign national did not have diplomatic immunity relating to a much less serious traffic offense https://autos.yahoo.com/owner-of-beverly-hills-laferrari-doe...

greatpatton2• 6 years ago

I think that you don't fully understand the concept underlying diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity exists to ensure that countries cannot use the local legal system when no crime is committed in order to put pressure on the diplomat or his family, not to go away when a real crime is committed. A lot of countries will wave diplomatic immunity when a real crime is committed or will prosecute the diplomat in their local legal system. The only countries refusing to do so are rogue or third world countries.

ceejayoz2• 6 years ago

There's already precedent for revoking diplomatic immunity for one's own diplomats. It's fairly rare, but very doable.

goatinaboat2• 6 years ago

If she did have diplomatic immunity then what is the basis to prosecute (or even just sue) her in the UK?

If you do something that is a crime usually sentenced to >1 year in both countries, then diplomatic immunity does not apply. Source: BBC

Also to have diplomatic immunity you must be an accredited diplomat agreed by the host country before entering. She was not.

shadowgovt3• 6 years ago

She's not a diplomat.

caymanjim• 6 years ago

Yeah, instead of working through the issue like civilized adults, let's throw a tantrum. That always makes things better.

saiya-jin• 6 years ago

You can't work through issues like an adult if the other side is represented by likes of Trump.

hatenberg• 6 years ago

Poodles don't get to disobey their masters

ComputerGuru• 6 years ago

Why would the USA extradite Sacoolas when they’re the ones that helped her flee the UK in the first place?

They flew her out on a USAF plane: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn

We do get mad when Saudi does the same thing, though.

shadowgovt3• 6 years ago

In this case, "because they want Assange." If one country refuses to play ball in extradition cooperation, another can exercise their own national authority to compel them with tit-for-tat. Another nation is one of the few institutions powerful enough to do so.

It's one of the few advantages of having multiple independent and equally-accountable-in-the-law countries.

rjsw• 6 years ago

I have seen a suggestion that UK diplomats in the US should start driving on the left.

save_ferris• 6 years ago

How does risking the lives of innocent people in any way solve this problem?

stjohnswarts2• 6 years ago

I don't think the UK government would do that with anything short of a death penalty possibility and that's not on the table in any way with this trial. They won't risk their extradition treaty with the USA over him.

Causality1• 6 years ago

It's bizarre to me that the US constitution's philosophical basis is that it does not create rights but only recognizes natural or God-given rights that people already have, yet the US government doesn't recognize those rights for anyone but its own citizens.

bumby8• 6 years ago

My (limited) understanding is that the Constitution does extend to non-citizens in many circumstances. Those are the ones that state rights of a "person" rather than "citizen".

E.g., "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

ianhawes• 6 years ago

It is largely an untested theory. The USG asserts that his 1A protections do not apply because he is not a USC and speech was outside the US. That begs the question of whether the court then has jurisdiction. It is a good rule of thumb that if you are being tried in the US, the constitution applies to you.

fit2rule4• 6 years ago

I truly hope there will be more leaks in the future. So far, we're seeing the tip of the ice-berg - but I predict that if Assange dies without justice, there are going to be repercussions. There are a lot of angry people out there, sitting on a goldmine of information, just waiting to see how this proceeds. I can't imagine a scenario where Wikileaks is pounded into the ground, and the rest of the world goes quiet - sure, mainstream mind control being what it is, we may forget Assange soon enough.

But the truth wants to be free, and when crimes against humanity are committed at such scale as the Coalition is capable, there has to be more on the horizon.

One wonders what the AirWars folks are thinking about all of this. I sure hope groups like these, as well as Wikileaks, is going to survive this onslaught of injustice.

The truth will come out. There'll be more leaks.

BLKNSLVR• 6 years ago

I'm wondering at what point the Australian Government might actually stand up in the defense of one of it's citizens against potential (and maybe even actual) human rights violations.

Australian politicians very much like to talk about 'protecting Australians' when it comes to ISP data retention and laws against encryption, but they tend to go entirely missing in the kind of situations where they are actually needed on behalf of a citizen that, in this case, needs potentially life-saving protection.

fit2rule4• 6 years ago

Not going to happen. They will bow to the needs of the USA, as Brazil has now done in its prosecution of Greenwald.

Wikileaks is sitting on a ton of info about the ADF's war crimes as well, and the Australian government want nothing more than to prevent the intense scrutiny of its proud fighting force by the worlds' people that would result from such a leak. They are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that Wikileaks is invalidated completely in the minds of the Australian public, who generally have very little temerity when it comes to criticism of their armed forces actions.

EDIT: Besides which, there is Australia's heinous Sedition law, which is being floated as the means by which Assange would be silenced were he to land back in Australias territory.

threeseed4• 6 years ago

Australian Federal Police is already investigating war crimes committed by the Defence Force:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/afp-travels-to-afghan...

The media has had plenty of information about alleged war crimes so I doubt Wikileaks is going to offer anything new.

austhrow743• 6 years ago

When Assange starts shitting coal.

threeseed4• 6 years ago

They have provided consular assistance and lobbied for his return. That's all they can do.

And far worse things have happened to Australian citizens abroad than solitary detention.

docdeek• 6 years ago

"According to WikiLeaks, witness statements submitted to the court by US prosecutors on Saturday argue that Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States.”

Isn’t this another way of saying US legal protections don’t apply to people who aren’t American, and aren’t physically present in America (or under its jurisdiction)? I feel like this would be the case for other countries, too: free speech laws that protect Americans in America wouldn’t protect them in China or Australia or Kenya, and Kenyans, Australians and Chinese citizens outside of the US aren’t protected by US law, either.

yorwba• 6 years ago

If US law doesn't grant protection to Assange because he's neither a US citizen nor physically present in America, then it also shouldn't be possible to prosecute him for things he did while neither a US citizen nor physically present in America.

chadcmulligan• 6 years ago

This is something I've always found confusing about the entire situation - Assange is an Australian citizen who did something in Iceland, yet the USA is applying its laws to him. Granted he obtained US intelligence from a US citizen, but how is this his problem? I find it hard to understand how this is possible.

chinesempire2• 6 years ago

Not to defend US justice system, but Assange allegedly jeopardized US national security, which is in the interest of US to protect.

If Assange was in a country that had no treaties with US, say for example Iran, he could avoid extradition easily, not so easily if there are strong agreements on both parties like UK and US have.

There are reasons why he wasn't in Iran or Afghanistan, one of them is that his life would be in more danger there than in any western court.

If Assange was extradited from Sweden, the country he escaped from, which is still an European country, he had the certainty that he could not be sentenced to the death penalty, that's a non-negotiable option if US ask for extradition from EU. UK will not be EU anymore starting from 1st of February 2020.

AndrewKemendo4• 6 years ago

What you have to remember about big public cases like these is that it's often something very specific that someone is being tried for.

In the Assange case the charge is "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion." The US is asking the UK to be a friend and arrest this person and then send them to a place where the laws apply so they can be punished for what they are accusing him of:

"Prosecutors accused Assange of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010, to crack a Defense Department computer password for accessing a vast trove of classified U.S. military and diplomatic material that subsequently was disclosed through WikiLeaks."

So just think of it like this: The US, UK and Australia are all "friends." The US thinks someone from Australia who was living in the UK did something that the US defined as bad. The US wants him to face trial for that and the only place to do that is in the US, so can their friends in the UK please send him along.

UI_at_80x24• 6 years ago

Thin edge of the wedge.

Extend that line of thinking to the internet. If I post a message on a forum, and that server is not located on USA soil then it can easily be argued that the speech did not occur in the US. 'From whence the voice was heard.'

HN appears to be primarily populated with like-minded individuals; so of course we will all point out the technical inaccuracies of my point, and will quickly follow-up with 'That won't happen here'. The same righteous indignation a few years ago would occur if anybody would have suggested that kids were separated from their families and forced into cages when people entered at the southern border .

This is not the era where kind, just, reasonable people are making or enforcing policies.

Tycho• 6 years ago

Wait, hold on a minute here, I was assured that the one thing Assange should have done years ago was turn himself over to the authorities and let justice take his course. Can someone explain to me how things could have diverged so badly from the expected path?

fit2rule4• 6 years ago

You were lied to - Assange is in the target of a large, highly profitable military-industrial-complex. Actual justice is not on the table; anyone paying attention has known this for years.

bilekas4• 6 years ago

Assange is in the target of a large, highly profitable military-industrial-complex

Woah there, went full tinfoil hat on us for a moment.

Agree, their intentions are probably to set an example and will act aggressively on Assange as much as possible, but they are still bound by their laws.. And in turn; 'justice'.

threeseed4• 6 years ago

Everything is being done in pretty strict accordance with the law.

US believes he committed a serious crime and as such it's expected they would seek extradition just like with every other person who does so.

ben_w2• 6 years ago

If Assange had gone to Sweden in 2010, and been found guilty and gone to prison, he might have finished his sentence before the USA officially decided to try him with their 2017 (?) indictment.

Even if he was still in prison, Sweden is at least as capable of resisting USA extradition requests as the UK.

Even if he wasn’t in prison/an embassy (either not guilty or guilty and released after doing time), the indictment would’ve happened anyway, and led to another extradition attempt anyway wherever he was — including, I recon, if he went straight from Sweden to Ecuador, given that Ecuador did remove his asylum.

Either way, his conditions would’ve been better between them and now, but also the situation right now would be the same (except for the time spent in a UK prison for breach of bail, and held by the authorities while waiting for an extradition hearing, and the loss of bail bond money from his supporters) except that either he would be exonerated from sexual assault charges or a dangerous narcissistic rapist would’ve been punished with a prison sentence rather than allowed to present themselves as a victim [delete as appropriate].

vidarh• 6 years ago

If he had been tried in Sweden in 2010, and there were no political machinations, he'd have been out probably by 2013-2015. Sentences in Sweden are short across the board - you can find even convictions for violent rapes in Sweden that results in sentences no longer than that.

But that rests on a lot of assumptions, such as that there wouldn't have been an earlier US indictment if he'd been conveniently accessible.

And of course it rests on the assumption that Sweden would have been as "capable of resisting" extradition. Which is a big question - one of the results of "Cablegate" was that we know that years after the Swedish government found out Swedish police was complicit in blatantly illegal rendition of two political asylum seekers who were afterwards tortured after being handed over to the government they were fleeing, the US was chastised secretly by the Swedish government after Swedish military intelligence caught Swedes assisting illegal rendition flights via Sweden. Nobody were ever tried for either incident. So it's not clear whether or not Sweden is even capable of stopping the US from unilaterally doing as it pleases, before even consider whether Sweden would want to.

I'm inclined to think the oddities in the Swedish case was down to domestic Swedish issues rather than US involvement, but at the same time I know for my part if I had feared US prosecution, I'd much rather stay in the UK than go to Sweden.

trevelyan• 6 years ago

Sweden does not offer habeus corpus to detainees who are under investigation but have not been charged. This is the category in which they placed Assange.

https://wikileaks.org/Sweden-Tells-the-UN-that.html

The Swedish desire to maneuver Assange into a black hole is self-evident in its refusal to interview Assange by telephone. Once that was done they would have had to charge him and present their evidence to the public under Swedish law.

ReptileMan2• 6 years ago

So the same justification for gitmo. Nothing new.

torstenvl• 6 years ago

As someone whose legal arguments have been drastically misunderstood by papers of much higher reputation (looking at you, WaPo), I'm skeptical of the accuracy of the claim.

kerkeslager• 6 years ago

Well, that certainly undermines the credibility of the Dept. of Justice's previous claims that Assange would receive a fair trial. If Assange doesn't have first amendment rights, what other inalienable, constitutional human rights doesn't he have?

sjg007• 6 years ago

If the US wants to apply US law globally then US constitutional rights should apply to you if the US wants to prosecute you. I imagine if this goes forward it will end up at the US Supreme Court. Also if Assange is on US soil at the time of prosecution then the 1st amendment should apply and it should be retroactive.

cambalache• 6 years ago

Unless the US fancies itself as the new Roman empire.

david_draco• 6 years ago

The US should respect article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or retreat from its signature to it.

Related, the US should respect the UN's ban on wars on aggression (Article 2, 39 of the charter), or otherwise retreat from its membership.

lettergram• 6 years ago

I mean... he’s also not a U.S. citizen, and wasn’t / isn’t under the jurisdiction of the U.S...

so sure if they argue he has no first amendment rights, then how do they argue they have jurisdiction?

creaghpatr• 6 years ago

Because it concerns US property (classified intelligence)

agotterer• 6 years ago

Isn’t this a slippery slope? Could the argument be made that anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen isn’t protected by the constitution then? Not a citizen, you can’t say what you want when you want. Not a citizen you don’t get the right to due process. Etc.

non-entity• 6 years ago

The US just assassinated a high ranking military official of a nation we arent at war with openly without even attempting it covertly. It would seem that they are already well invested in carrying out justice against foreign nationals as they see fit

pyb• 6 years ago

"Between December 19 and January 13, lawyers had just two hours to brief Assange and take instruction. They were granted one more hour to confer on January 13, when Assange last appeared in court."

IANAL, but that doesn't sound normal to me, particularly for such a case.

SllX6• 6 years ago

Horseshit.

The Bill of Rights is descriptive of some of the natural rights of men, not prescriptive. The reason it exists at all was to satisfy people who quite rightly thought that without the extra legal insulation a malicious Congress or government would trample all over them.

Go read the 1st Amendment, it’s right here:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first five words are “Congress shall make no law”, or basically, this isn’t a grant given to the people, this is a restriction on the type of laws Congress is allowed to pass, and if Congress can’t pass a law, then a President can’t enforce it because it doesn’t constitutionally exist!

JumpCrisscross3• 6 years ago

if Congress can’t pass a law, then a President can’t enforce it because it doesn’t constitutionally exist

Yet federal health workers can be legally bound to secrecy.

The Bill of Rights is in natural conflict with itself. My rights restrict your freedoms and vice versa. This is a complicated dance that has been extensively litigated.

SllX6• 6 years ago

Federal health workers are civil servants. The restrictions on their rights are of an employer-employee variety, or of a contractural variety. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to enter the civil service, and they can choose to leave it.

Again, go read the Bill of Rights. They are restrictions on the national government’s ability to legislate or take certain actions against you, not a grant of rights doled out to satisfy you. “You have the freedom to speak and of the press, etc.” is far less powerful and meaningful than “Congress shall make no law...”

saalweachter• 6 years ago

It is also worth repeating, from time to time, the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

chapium3• 6 years ago

Sorry, but you are wrong. But that's ok, its a common misconception about constitutional law. The first amendment does carry those restrictions, but it is not the only law affecting those rights. Specifically, the "privileges and immunities" clause from the 14th amendment has extended the 1st amendment to apply to the rights of citizens and has been interpreted as such by the Supreme Court in various cases.

JA is not a US Citizen, and I admit I do not know where that lands him constitutionally speaking.

monocasa3• 6 years ago

Can you cite what case law backs up that reading?

awb• 6 years ago

But the moment he's tried in a US court or lands in the US presumably he has those rights.

We don't treat tourists under a different Constitution or deny them 1st amendment rights.

SllX6• 6 years ago

The Privileges and Immunities clause isn’t relevant to this discussion, but you’re welcome to make your case that it is.

MereInterest• 6 years ago

It's also worth adding that this wording makes it extend beyond the US borders. If the US Constitution granted rights to individuals, it would only apply to individuals under the US Constitution. Instead, it makes a blanket assumption that the freedom of speech exists, and that while other governments may restrict it, Congress may not. For example, overseas funding for HIV/AIDS may not be conditional on recipients having a strict anti-prostitution policy, as that would violate the free speech of the recipients[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_for_International_Devel....

mnm12• 6 years ago

We're torturing and holding people without charges for decades and even their entire lifetimes. We routinely ignore every single amendment and clause of the constitution when it's convenient for the government. I think what the constitution says is irrelevant at this point. The government will do what it wants irrespective of the constitution. The only dissonance here is that some people still insist on calling the US a free, democratic country. Not sure it ever really was in its history, but it sure as hell isn't now. It would help us all if we stopped this delusion.

SllX6• 6 years ago

That’s a separate ball of wax, but we do hold people captured in war in fairly inhumane conditions. I don’t agree with this policy, but it’s important to understand where the lines are being drawn.

It’s also important to remember that military tribunals are not nor have they ever been Article III courts, nor do the same standards apply in the case of war that would apply in civil or criminal cases.

Psyladine2• 6 years ago

It's fascinatingly broad...how can Congress make a law, for instance, restricting someone reading aloud top secret classified documents? I suppose they had their own hand-wringing with it, since they shortly after passed the sedition act, which was also let to expire.

deogeo• 6 years ago

witness statements submitted to the court by US prosecutors on Saturday argue that Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States.

Wouldn't this logic extend to all the other amendments as well? Meaning Assange has no rights, at which points, why even bother with a trial? Just execute him as soon as he touches US soil.

Of course, this logic could be applied to all foreign nationals then.

My only question is, if US rights don't apply to foreign nationals, how come legal restrictions do apply? Can the executive branch just arbitrarily decide which laws apply to a foreign national?

AndrewKemendo4• 6 years ago

Having dealt with this issue while overseas and having done some previous searching, the question of whether the Constitution applies to Non-Citizens residing outside of the US is unclear in law.

Note, the distinction here: Someone who is residing outside of the US.

"Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States"

Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen who was residing in the United Kingdom and was not being held by agents of the US Government. It's unclear under what precedent he would enjoy protections under the US Constitution.

shadowgovt3• 6 years ago

There's a strong Constitutional construction argument that argues the Constitution applies to all people regardless of citizenship if the government intends to put legal binding upon them and we are not in a state of war.

But I believe the US executive branch has not ascribed to that legal philosophy since at least George W. Bush's presidency.

Isamu• 6 years ago

Agreed, many of the rights described were once considered the "natural" rights of man, not granted, and I thought the language clearly demonstrated that main concern was with restricting the power of government from denying those rights.

Not everybody believes in rights that are not granted, so I think the view that these rights only applied to citizens was always around, but yes, 9/11 did provide added motivation to deny rights to non-citizens.

AndrewKemendo4• 6 years ago

I think that's a good argument, but I'm not a lawyer, I just know that the Rules Of Engagement for military members extended the spirit of the constitution, to how we were supposed to interact with the local population in Iraq.

In Assange's case though I don't see how the First Amendment will help here, as the charge is "Conspiracy to commit Computer Intrusion." I don't think the district court is making a case about whether Assange has the right to publish data freely.

stanferder• 6 years ago

Isn't it contradictory to maintain that a non-US citizen outside the country does not have rights under the US Constitution, but can be subject to US law?

AndrewKemendo4• 6 years ago

The issue at hand is how you define "subject to US law." It's unclear so far what kind of boundaries you can put around that because in the general case, this is discussing what the US Government can prevent you from doing.

So for example if a Chinese citizen is arrested in Beijing by the Chinese Police for protesting in Tienanmen square, nobody would seriously claim that the US Constitution protects their speech. - So that covers the case where there is no protection from the US Constitution because the US doesn't have jurisdiction there.

How about an example where a Bolivian Citizen starts a clinic in Bolivia and then shares all of their patient's data with anyone who wants it within the borders of Bolivia. That is a clear breach of HIPAA rules but again because the US does not have jurisdiction, then nobody would seriously claim that the US has anything to say about this situation.

Lastly, assume the case where a Norwegian Citizen sitting in Oslo accesses bank accounts of US citizens and transfers money to his account that is in Switzerland without their consent. What crimes is this person committing and who has jurisdiction to enforce them?

That is unclear, but I think it comes down to how reciprocal non-US countries are when it comes to what laws should be enforced by one country and the citizens of another.

stjohnswarts2• 6 years ago

No judge will support that, not even cronies put in by Trump. The only way they would get anything even close is to have him declared an enemy combatant and that's not going to happen.

US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amendment Rights

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