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Biden faces a renewed push, domestically and internationally, to drop charges against Assange, who is languishing in a UK jail:
The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.
The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that "a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy".
But the biggest test of Biden's commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.
[...] Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange's protracted prosecution.
Five major media organizations that relied on his trove of government secrets, including the Guardian and the New York Times, put out an open letter earlier this month saying that his indictment "sets a dangerous precedent" and threatens to undermine the first amendment.
(Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday December 13 2022, @08:26PM (12 children)
I’m not so sure any more. I think there’s a chance they will drop the extradition and let the UK keep him. It was a long time ago, and he’s been in jail 3 years plus the years he spent stuck in the embassy. He’s suffering mentally and has done a lot of time basically. Biden is likely in my opinion to see the humanity in this. But I guess we’ll see. Wikileaks has been very quiet the past 5+ years too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sjolfr on Tuesday December 13 2022, @09:49PM (11 children)
Government has the longest memory for offences against it than anything else I can think of. Biden will do nothing about Assange and Snowden. Trump had the oportunity to do something and neglected it, I think that tells us something about the long term for those guys.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday December 13 2022, @10:24PM (8 children)
I must admit that dropping the charges against Assange was the one thing I hoped Trump would actually do. It would fit perfectly for him, as Assange was hated by Hillary Clinton.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2022, @12:59AM (6 children)
> It would fit perfectly for him,
I don't think you understand Trump. The question is, could Trump monetize the release of Assange? Trump's in it for the money, honey. Just look at the scams he ran while in office, even conning Runaway out of a donation "for the wall".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2022, @02:17AM (3 children)
I think that Trump is a bit more complicated than many of you would like to believe. He did kill that free trade thing - transpacific something or other. He couldn't monetize that, after all. So, why did he kill it? I'm not really sure why, but the treaty was Un-American as hell.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2022, @03:00AM (1 child)
He obviously seems very complicated to you. To the rest of us, he's pretty simple.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2022, @04:06AM
Oh, my kingdom for a +1 Touche mod point. Good sir, this post will have to suffice.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday December 17 2022, @01:39AM
Trump killed it, which was a very good thing, but immediately started talking about rejoining it with something that protects American intellectual property first. Killing it was a win for consumers and advocates of internet freedom, his ideas on replacing it wanted to allow "American" companies to crack down even more on consumers and internet freedom. Fortunately, he's easily distracted, and those ideas haven't come to fruition yet.
(Score: 2) by helel on Wednesday December 14 2022, @04:12AM (1 child)
You really don't think Trump ever did anything petty just for the sake of being petty? Never took the chance to piss on people without any gain for himself? I feel like you were watching a much more benevolent bovine than I was over the last presidency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2022, @11:37AM
> Never took the chance to piss on people without any gain for himself?
But pissing on people empties the bladder, surely that has to count as a gain?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 14 2022, @03:41PM
>It would fit perfectly for him, as Assange was hated by Hillary Clinton.
Why would that increase the odds? Trump was quite friendly with the Clintons until he decided to run for president, and demonizing Hillary became a way to energize his supporters. He even came out shortly after winning the election and publicly admitted that the whole "Lock her up!" thing was just an empty campaign slogan.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2022, @02:18AM (1 child)
Odd, isn't it? Government has no memory of the offenses it has committed . . . it really is that simple. Any who oppose the Benevolent Leaders have to die.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 14 2022, @03:48PM
What are you implying? The government never commits offenses - if it did it would lock itself up. It hasn't done so, so obviously it's committed no offense.
What actually happens is sometimes the peasants take offense at something the government did, but since power and justice flow from above that's obviously a failure in the peasants rather than the government.
That democracy fad tried to change things, claiming power ultimately flowed from the people and the government should be bound to their will. But here in the US at least we've mostly stamped that bullshit out - we still go through the motions, but it's been decades since a single law has been passed without broad support from the neo-aristocracy, regardless of how popular it is among the peasants. At least at the national level - the cancer of democracy still has some hold at the local level, but they're working on it.