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Comment by ordinaryradical | Hacker News Reader

This is the critical difference. If the NY Times stole the Pentagon Papers themselves, they committed a crime regardless of whether or not they choose to publish the material. If Daniel Ellsberg steals the Pentagon Papers and the Times and Washington Post choose to publish them as part of their reporting on the Vietnam War, they are not somehow made accessories to his crime through publication.

Assange can publish whatever he wants* (*according to the US laws that govern freedom of speech, etc.) but as soon as he becomes actively involved in the exfiltration of classified material he is breaking the law.

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> *according to the US laws that govern freedom of speech, etc.

He's an Australian currently in the UK though. I don't like the global reach of US laws.

Well, he allegedly attempted to hack into US computers, right? If a US citizen hacked into Australian servers, they could be extradited from the UK as well.

True. If the hack was related to divulging accurate but classified information detailing Australia's recent invasion and topple of two sovereign nations, against recommendation by the majority of the UN, it would likely play out different.

The US isn't special in this regard. Many nations have extradition treaties with each other and they are often invoked in cases of espionage. To paint that as US law "reaching the globe" is a bit facetious; everyone is entangled in everyone else's law—especially when it comes to espionage.

I couldn't find any good comparative statistics, but I hear about people being extradited to the US a lot more than from, giving the appearance of a rather one-sided relationship. The treaties may be the same, but they don't seem to be used the same.

According to the UK's Home Office, the US requests more extraditions of UK citizens than vice versa, but that might be due to the relative population sizes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/extradition-reque...

Your link doesn't list the reason for extradition, doing some research on this issue, I see parental kidnapping generates a fair number of extradition requests.

That’s partially because the US is a espionage target to a far greater extent than most other countries.

Well, following Snowden's revelations we learned that NSA was spying on European countries' citizens and administrations, the US president (Obama at the time) just said that spying on allies was a perfectly natural thing.

This is definitely a one-sided relationship.

You can be sure that the US will never extradite anyone for that at least.

>To paint that as US law "reaching the globe" is a bit facetious

'Everybody does it' argument does not invalidate the claim. I'm not making judgement on what should happen here but...

An Austrailian man was just arrested in the United Kingdom and is to be extridited to the United States for allegations of attempting to aide the circumvention of encryption on a laptop (while located in Sweeden) that was owned by the US government and stolen by (while located in the Afghanistan) a US citizen containing information about the United States government's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

1. He's charged with conspiring with an American to hack into an American network.

2. The UK signed an extradition agreement with the US of its own accord

3. Extradition is very common. This situation is what extradition treaties are for.

I understand the basis for the charges: Assange supposedly committed a crime against the US and so we claim jurisdiction, but does he have Constitutional rights, not just the ones extending from treaties and agreements?

I believe ANYONE facing a US court gets US constitutional rights.

Otherwise we could run roughshod over any foreigners we wanted.

(Yeah yeah, extraordinary rendition, etc. I know.)

>Otherwise we could run roughshod over any foreigners we wanted.

That's the justification for (and purpose of) Guantanamo Bay, that the US can get around respecting (foreign and domestic) prisoners' Constitutional rights and obeying laws against indefinite detainment without trial and torture because it's not "technically" American, but Cuban.

That was what the Bush administration tried to do, but they were unsuccessful. The Supreme Court ruled that it was still unconstitutional, and the prisoners had the same rights under the US Constitution.

And yet they are still there...

i think that's important but how exactly is that specified? Does the US Constitution to apply to anyone on US soil?

In the 50 states + DC + incorporated territories, the entire US Constitution applies to everyone. There are unincorporated territories, where things are a bit fuzzier.

Certain rights apply differently depending on what citizenship you hold. You can be held and deported if you're not a citizen; you have more due process if you have a green card than if you are on a tourist visa. But all of those gradations of rights are in the context of the Constitution.

If an Australian tourist visits the US, they can be arrested as part of a police investigation the same way an American can be, and they have Constitutional rights such the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

I’m assuming you’re asking about whether Assange can claim the law violates the guarantees of free speech and a free press. I’m sure his attorneys will make that argument. I’m also sure that the court will rule against him. If an American gave Manning advice on how to crack another user’s password on a classified military system, they wouldn’t get very far claiming “free speech” or “free press.”

Personally, I don’t see any reason that Assange should feel any loyalty to the US, so there is a difference between an American helping an American military intelligence analyst crack computer security and an Australian doing so. On the other hand, if an old friend contacted me and said “I’m in the Ecuadorian military and I need help cracking into a classified computer,” I would assume that my helping them would violate Ecuadorian law.

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