I don't see how Wikileaks can legally be prosecuted without creating a constitutional disaster.

[howard112211]

The administration must be aware of this. If this case ever hits a court, it will blow up in everyones face. If they somehow manage to ram this through by twisting the law into a pretzel, and create such a precedent, it will be the end of a free press as we know it. The implications of such a trial would be broad, such that an extremely large number of people currently working for the media could also face trial.

I wonder whether the adminstration has thought this through, or whether they simply want to abandon the rule of law altogether.

Overall, I think the situation is being handled poorly. The instruction for government employees not to read any leaked material is a strategic disaster as well. IMO a better response would be to instruct everyone to inform themselves.

What Wikileaks is doing is working. The whole idea of "isolating the individual parts of an unjust system from one another and provoking it to shut down its brain" is exactly what we are seeing.

[tavalon]

1. You've been around the last decade, yes?

The constitution has been all but destroyed.

[social_critic]

17. The Constitution has been all but destroyed

Agreed

[redirish28]

2. It can't. If congress and the court allow this to happen we will see

the dangerous event happening. The constitutional being render completely in effective.


Did you hear the gentleman on Keith Olbermann's show talking about Obama trying to get 4 OTHER cases tried?



(I saw the replay on the countdown website. It is freaky.)

[jimlup]

3. I'm sad to say I think they can get away with it.

And it is becoming clear that the sex charges against Assange are only holding tactics. The conversation went something like this: "How can we hold him until we've gotten the espionage charges ready? OK, arrest him on that ridiculous sex charge thing and we'll have the espionage charges ready to go in a week. Can we have the trial in the UK to avoid the obvious difficulties for us or do we American's have to do everything?"

[leveymg]

4. The Brits have an Official Secrets Act, we don't - yet. Maybe, the UK will try to prosecute him.

I think that's what the Obama Administration wants to happen.

[jimlup]

11. Seems likely

I wonder if he just got stuck in the UK by mistake during the run up to the formal charges. I guess Assange couldn't stay in Sweden. But I'm surprised he went to the UK, seems a pretty risky place for him to be. Only slightly better than the US itself.

[EFerrari]

18. Hadn't occurred to me but you could be right.

And London is a tinderbox right now.

[undeterred]

5. Nobody seems to care about the Constitution any more.

[CanonRay]

6. Remember, we now have at least 4 judges on the Supreme Court

who could give a shit about the Constitution, when it serves right wing interests.

[madrchsod]

7. the government would have to extradite (kidnap) him to the usa....

he`s not a usa citizen and wikileaks is`t a us organization. the us government could force the internet providers to kill his "site" but bit torrent would go right around that.

[bemildred]

8. We live in desperate times. Our leaders take themselves desperately seriously. nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. The Soviet Empire did everything to prohibit their collapse also

As do all empires in the last throngs of desperation.

[rucky]

10. First the courts will have to re-define what "the media" is.

That may not be a bad thing to have on record, seeing as FOX News has little to do with actual news.

[EFerrari]

12. Don't they have to argue that government corruption is a state secret?

:)

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. Well., Who is the government?

It certainly not its citizens.

[EFerrari]

15. I was just thinking that above all, the fiction of "national security"

must be protected.

So if Wikileaks says, we expose corruption, then the government has to argue, but that's a state secret!

Does our "national security" really depend on not knowing how corrupt the government is? Maybe it does!

[northernlights]

14. what, that "quaint" piece of paper? I thought they shredded that years ago.

There is only one rule of law now, and that is that Money Rules. Everything else is confetti.

[EFerrari]

16. Last week, PJ "Uncle Joe" Crowley indicated two possible rationales

for prosecuting Assange.

One was the possession of stolen government property. The other was that Assange is not a journalist. I don't understand how either of them work, separately or apart.

One possible storyline might be, Assange took possession of stolen government property for political uses that are not permissible under any kind of journalist's protection rulings by the Supreme Court because he's not a journalist.

But I don't see how that would work when Wikileaks expressly describes itself as media and works with media. :shrug:

[Better Believe It]

19. They can designate Assange "an enemy combatant" and do whatever they please with him.

This adminstration does not respect the Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

[howard112211]

20. That is kind of what I see happening.

No trial. Just disappear.