This isn't as crazy as it sounds because the Roman Empire had provinces which were technically "independent" monarchies aligned with Rome. Most famously, Egypt under Cleopatra and Judea under Herod.
You're going to have to write a book or two of argumentation, because you seem like you're drawing parallels between intersecting lines
Maybe we really do need a little dance with authoritarianism here to remind people what that is.
Even its allies aren't free of government interference from the US.
But US allies are not "free" in the sense that they can't do something that the US really doesn't like. Japan's government, for example, would not be trying to repeal its pacifist constitution unless they had the US's blessing to re-militarize.
Basically, there are 2 different senses in which a country can be called "free". But even in the individual liberty sense, a libertarian (either of the Ron Paul or Noam Chomsky variants) would not consider the US or any of its allies to be free and acting like they are libertarian countries is a good way to become a martyr.
Arguably, this is bullshit. The UK might be dangerously friendly with the US on multiple fronts, but e.g. France has refused to extradite Polanski forever, refuses to hand over control of their nukes to NATO, and pursues an independent but aligned foreign policy to the US.
While US would prosecute him if they could , they have not tried anywhere as hard to extradite him like they are doing with Assange .
Assange is not a UK citizen , UK has some of the weirdest privacy and human rights laws they are not fully part of EHCR anymore and actively trying to deport refugees to Rwanda , France is hardly in the same category as UK .
I wouldn’t characterize UK as country with strong human rights they are pretty exploitative (see how they treated windrush generation or the Gurkhas )
Crimes that directly threaten the sovereign are always the most serious crimes especially if they involve waging war against it or undermining its war effort. This is a constant throughout all societies. The next most serious class of crimes would be those that undermine the state's control of the financial system which is critical to its power. That's also why the US government has thrown the book at those who trespassed in the Capitol as part of a comically incompetent attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Likewise, intentional tax evasion is going to get the book thrown at you. When the state feels genuinely threatened, "human rights" and "constitutional rights" are irrelevant and will be "interpreted" to allow whatever the state wishes to do.
Really? It doesn't seem that way at all to me, it seems only few rioters have been given a slap on the wrist, none of the key organizers are in jail, neither is head of the moment, many of them who attempted to overthrow the government are serving in congress even now. The leader is the presumptive nominee of a major political party and openly talks about being a dictator when elected. Not one have been disqualified under 14th amendment and does not look at all likely before the election.
The extremely slow speed and ineptitude at which the system has moved so far is just astonishing and is completely counter to your point on Government moves faster, harder when its survival is at stake, compare that to say how quickly Brazil has reacted to a similar attempt by Jair Bolsonaro.
> far more serious a crime than (allegedly) raping a child because
It is sad that we have come far to these days characterize actions by foreign reporters not subject to any U.S. law whatsoever and who merely published and did not leak themselves damning evidence of atrocities and war crimes committed in violation of Geneva convention of which US is a signatory as crimes.
Also I cannot but help notice that you feel need to say allegedly about an horrific incident in which no one disputes the facts, but afford no such benefit of doubt to Assange.
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
Very true. The UK spying on Belgium and the US spying on Germany come to mind., but that is "business as usual" and no one expects it to change or start going after people involved.
Espionage is expected and deterred as possible but because everyone has spies everyone tends to play nice when they get caught, because they don’t want their own agents mistreated.
Disclosure, on the other hand, threatens the power structure of all players.
People need to understand that the every person is meant to be firmly under the foot of the ruling class, and understanding the mechanisms by which this is accomplished is verboten. The excuses range from “what about the children” to “national security” but the goal is the same - maintaining a healthy imbalance of information and power.
Anything that significantly threatens that imbalance will be met with extreme prejudice. JA overplayed his hand and underestimated the willingness of those involved to absorb casualties in order to stem the proliferation of infrastructure which might work against that treasured monopoly of coercion.
Encryption, distributed systems, anonymous networks, and related technologies are the only effective means to provide a counter to the asymmetric threats that endanger our personal agency.
These technologies are much more important to a free society than any possible harm that they may facilitate. Those harms existed before the internet, and will not go away if they are made slightly more difficult.
The ability to pervasively maintain an efficiently functioning surveillance state requires the internet, and P/A technologies are critical to countering the efficiency of this capability.
Nope. "Nice" only comes if they are exchanged. Otherwise just rot in jail.
Here here, well said.
Saying Assange "shared" secrets seems incorrect. Manning shared secrets with Assange so that Assange could publish them.
Punishing Manning surely scared those considering sharing secrets. Punishing Assange would frighten those considering publishing secrets, something the US has generally been unable to freely do.
I say that, but my post also could use clarification. The US has typically been unable to scare publishers of documents, the last time they really tried was with the Pentagon Papers and the Supreme Court ruled they couldn't punish publishers.
The act happened on a computer system with-in US jurisdiction.
See also "Three North Korean Military Hackers Indicted in Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes Across the Globe":
> Indictment Expands 2018 Case that Detailed Attack on Sony Pictures and Creation of WannaCry Ransomware by Adding Two New Defendants and Recent Global Schemes to Steal Money and Cryptocurrency from Banks and Businesses while Operating in North Korea, China
* https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-north-korean-military-h...
* https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/17/north-kor...
* https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56103921
> Every country is potentially spying on every other country and it doesn't even matter if they are supposed to be allies or enemies.
There are 'official' spies that have diplomatic immunity, and so cannot be charged, but can be expelled. The 'unofficial' spies can certainly be charged:
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/29/fbi-breaks-up-...
When it comes to cyber-y stuff, certainly countries work against each other, but if it's a "group" that is doing the attacks, it may be hard to identify the individuals, but when they are identified, they can be charged:
* https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/china_apt31_charges/
So let's say I google some information about Koran and find a website with Koran, analysis etc. Turns out it's hosted in Saudi Arabia, and the act of me, an atheist, reading Koran is blasphemy, punishable with death.
So should I be extradited to Saudi Arabia, given that the act happened on a computer system with-in Saudi Arabia?
IANAL: AIUI, extradition generally only occurs if the (alleged) action is a crime in both jurisdiction.
> If Country A has no laws against blasphemy, for example, a lack of double criminality could prevent a suspect from being extradited from Country A to face blasphemy charges in another country, i.e. no outbound extradition from Country A, and neither are citizens of Country A eligible for international prisoner transfers from another country having criminally convicted them for blasphemy, i.e. no inbound prisoner transfer to Country A.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_criminality
Blasphemy (against the Quran) is not a crime in (e.g.) the US, so generally you could not be extradited from there for it. Also, there is no the treaty:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia–United_States_rel...
Whereas (say) unauthorized computer access is a crime in many places, and so it could be a mutual-crime eligible for extradition.
Of course if you live in Country A and are charged in Country B which has no treaty with A, you could potentially (IANAL) be arrested in Country C—which does have a treaty with B—if you were travelling there.
This gives the spy protection as both sides are spying on each other so usually what happens is some snarky comment/strongly worded letter and expulsion of a few spies back to their home country from both sides.
In the worst case someone goes to prison but usually in response the other side also finds some spies to put into prison too as "revenge".
Also whatever information the spies manage to get in general is not released to the public.
I think it's a miscarriage of justice that Assange is just sitting in jail. At the same time, his defenders don't admit that he solicited and provided technical assistance to Americans who expressed interest in stealing secrets. Plus he's almost certainly a creep. The condom-removal allegations are very likely true. While not relevant to his crimes, this makes him much less sympathetic.
Edit: I see the law is catching up there: https://apnews.com/article/health-crime-california-gavin-new...
They can extradite him because Australia says that they can. Most of our countries at the highest levels agreed to this. It's called international law and it's messy.
Not an expat. Julian Assange is not a US citizen, not on US ground, does not work for a US company. He can’t be committing “espionage” because he’s not inside; at most he can be committing “reporting” upon US practices.
Same question arose when EU wrote the GDPR: It was a debate at the time that a US company with no activity in EU could be trialled in EU for misdemeanor against EU laws. Apparently it can.
Obviously not. Yet the USA does this routinely. It's effectively what Assange did.
Publishing US state secrets is not a crime in any other country.
I think that is what the trial is to decide.