I thought he was like one of the most important whistleblowers of our time exposing war crimes and shit. Some of you don’t wanna see him live another day, why is that?
I thought he was like one of the most important whistleblowers of our time exposing war crimes and shit. Some of you don’t wanna see him live another day, why is that?
One of the things I struggle to understand (maybe I should read more about it) is how US law has jurisdiction to stifle speech outside of US territories.
Like if Romania declared Borat a state secret, would every pirate on that swarm with a seed ratio above 0.00 be subject to extradition?
It doesn’t. All the USA can do is politely ask another country to take action. The other country can say “no, fuck you” (i.e. if they would ask Russia), or they can say something like “sure, but then we get to ask you to give us the criminals we’re looking for too”. In decent democracies there’s usually a judge that will rule if extradition is legal or not (for instance, countries without the death penalty will often hesitate to extradite to the USA when the criminals are likely to be sentenced to death), and in this case a judge ruled that extradition is allowed.
If Romania declared Borat a state secret, and an American judge would say “fair play to you”, then Romanian nationals living in the USA may find themselves extradited.
The USA wouldn’t do anything in that case. The problem for Assange is that he committed treason, breaking American laws, and being physically present in a country with an extradition treaty. If he had fled to Russia, like Snowden did, the American government would never have gotten their hands on him.
The US (and Canada, where I live) has an extradition treaty with Romania.
The US treaty does mention that
But I haven’t read it in detail so that may or may not be relevant (the past I quoted is referring to a particular part of the treaty).
My understand is that typically the threshold for extradition is mutual criminality which I suppose is my answer to how US law applies itself outside US territories (because leaking state secrets is a crime in most countries). So I withdraw my inquiry.
If Romania declared Borat a state secret pirates could perhaps be extradited.
But also note that I don’t think Assange can be charged with treason, because he isn’t American.
Oh, you’re right, Assange isn’t American. I keep confusing him with the other whistle blowers. It can’t be treason, though I’m sure there’s some kind of “attack by a private person against the state” law.
I’m pretty sure the USA can ask for extradition if someone’s behaviour damaged Americans in some way. Hackers ransomwaring American companies and sometimes movie pirates get extradited to the USA, regardless of citizenship.