US Department of Justice Argues Assange Has No First Amendment Rights

Horseshit.<p>The Bill of Rights is descriptive of <i>some</i> of the natural rights of men, not prescriptive. The reason it exists at all was to satisfy people who quite rightly thought that without the extra legal insulation a malicious Congress or government would trample all over them.<p>Go read the 1st Amendment, it’s right here:<p>&gt; <i>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</i><p>The first five words are “Congress shall make no law”, or basically, this isn’t a <i>grant</i> given to the people, this is a restriction on the type of laws Congress is allowed to pass, and if Congress can’t pass a law, then a President can’t enforce it because it doesn’t constitutionally exist!

I&#x27;m wondering at what point the Australian Government might actually stand up in the defense of one of it&#x27;s citizens against potential (and maybe even actual) human rights violations.<p>Australian politicians very much like to talk about &#x27;protecting Australians&#x27; when it comes to ISP data retention and laws against encryption, but they tend to go entirely missing in the kind of situations where they are actually needed on behalf of a citizen that, in this case, needs potentially life-saving protection.

UK govt should be refusing all US extradition requests, and suspending all trials until it is accepted Sacoolas be extradited to the UK.

I&#x27;ve heard people say the US constitution lays out limits of what the US government can do, as opposed to rights of US citizens.<p>So, if the US government wants to hold you in detention, they have to tell you why, not because you have that &#x27;right&#x27;, but because they are bound by law to do so in all circumstances irrespective of what passport you&#x27;re carrying.<p>Again, I&#x27;ve only <i>heard</i> this before -- I&#x27;m not at all a legal scholar. Can anyone confirm or deny this interpretation and possibly give more reading material around it?

If the US wants to apply US law globally then US constitutional rights should apply to you if the US wants to prosecute you. I imagine if this goes forward it will end up at the US Supreme Court. Also if Assange is on US soil at the time of prosecution then the 1st amendment should apply and it should be retroactive.

&gt; &quot;According to WikiLeaks, witness statements submitted to the court by US prosecutors on Saturday argue that Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States.”<p>Isn’t this another way of saying US legal protections don’t apply to people who aren’t American, and aren’t physically present in America (or under its jurisdiction)? I feel like this would be the case for other countries, too: free speech laws that protect Americans in America wouldn’t protect them in China or Australia or Kenya, and Kenyans, Australians and Chinese citizens outside of the US aren’t protected by US law, either.

It&#x27;s bizarre to me that the US constitution&#x27;s philosophical basis is that it does not create rights but only recognizes natural or God-given rights that people already have, yet the US government doesn&#x27;t recognize those rights for anyone but its own citizens.

Well, that certainly undermines the credibility of the Dept. of Justice&#x27;s previous claims that Assange would receive a fair trial. If Assange doesn&#x27;t have first amendment rights, what other inalienable, constitutional human rights doesn&#x27;t he have?

&gt; witness statements submitted to the court by US prosecutors on Saturday argue that Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States.<p>Wouldn&#x27;t this logic extend to all the other amendments as well? Meaning Assange has <i>no</i> rights, at which points, why even bother with a trial? Just execute him as soon as he touches US soil.<p>Of course, this logic could be applied to <i>all</i> foreign nationals then.<p>My only question is, if US rights don&#x27;t apply to foreign nationals, how come legal restrictions <i>do</i> apply? Can the executive branch just arbitrarily decide which laws apply to a foreign national?

I mean... he’s also not a U.S. citizen, and wasn’t &#x2F; isn’t under the jurisdiction of the U.S...<p>so sure if they argue he has no first amendment rights, then how do they argue they have jurisdiction?

I truly hope there will be more leaks in the future. So far, we&#x27;re seeing the tip of the ice-berg - but I predict that if Assange dies without justice, there are going to be repercussions. There are a <i>lot</i> of angry people out there, sitting on a goldmine of information, just waiting to see how this proceeds. I can&#x27;t imagine a scenario where Wikileaks is pounded into the ground, and the rest of the world goes quiet - sure, mainstream mind control being what it is, we may forget Assange soon enough.<p>But the truth wants to be free, and when crimes against humanity are committed at such scale as the Coalition is capable, there has to be more on the horizon.<p>One wonders what the AirWars folks are thinking about all of this. I sure hope groups like these, as well as Wikileaks, is going to survive this onslaught of injustice.<p>The truth will come out. There&#x27;ll be more leaks.

Having dealt with this issue while overseas and having done some previous searching, the question of whether the Constitution applies to Non-Citizens residing outside of the US is unclear in law.<p>Note, the distinction here: Someone who is residing outside of the US.<p>&quot;Assange does not enjoy First Amendment protections because he is not a US citizen and because the amendment allegedly does not protect speech made outside the United States&quot;<p>Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen who was residing in the United Kingdom and was not being held by agents of the US Government. It&#x27;s unclear under what precedent he would enjoy protections under the US Constitution.

&quot;Between December 19 and January 13, lawyers had just two hours to brief Assange and take instruction. They were granted one more hour to confer on January 13, when Assange last appeared in court.&quot;<p>IANAL, but that doesn&#x27;t sound normal to me, particularly for such a case.

Wait, hold on a minute here, I was assured that the one thing Assange should have done years ago was turn himself over to the authorities and let justice take his course. Can someone explain to me how things could have diverged so badly from the expected path?

As someone whose legal arguments have been drastically misunderstood by papers of much higher reputation (looking at you, WaPo), I&#x27;m skeptical of the accuracy of the claim.

No judge will support that, not even cronies put in by Trump. The only way they would get anything even close is to have him declared an enemy combatant and that&#x27;s not going to happen.

So the same justification for gitmo. Nothing new.

This is not a credible source. Has there been any reporting from a major paper?