A couple of days ago I did a long post over at the New Statesman which dealt with the legal mythology which had developed in relation to the Julian Assange extradition case.
I had thought they may be the last substantive thing I would write on the subject. However, a number of Assange’s more committed supporters continue to question my motivations in blogging about the Assange case. This being so, I thought a short (and I hope) final word would be useful.
When the relevant allegations against Assange emerged two years ago, I happened to be one of the first legal bloggers to cover the subject. Straight away it appeared to me that there was a significant due process issue. There appeared a lot of people anxious to discredit the allegations (and the complainants) without there being a proper investigation. In particular, there were many individuals who believed their take on the allegations had a higher purchase than any formal process. There were even some who were “slut-shaming” the complainants.
I thought this was very wrong. I still do.
From that basis, I began to cover the legal side of events involving Assange and Wikileaks.
In February 2011, I challenged the threat of Wikileaks of taking action against the Guardian for “malicious libels”. It seemed inappropriate to me for the organization to be making such a threat. After all, Wikileaks is supposedly about transparency and freedom of information.
And in May 2011, I revealed the Wikileaks £12 million “penalty” clause in their Non-Disclosure Agreement and indeed published the entire NDA. I showed that it – wrongly – claimed a commercial and proprietary interest in the information which had been disclosed to it. This was concerning, because – again – Wikileaks is supposedly about transparency and freedom of information.
(When Wikileaks and others contended that such an NDA was actually appropriate for their work, I even drafted an alternative NDA which had no such commercial pretensions.)
It was becoming clear that Assange – or whoever else at Wikileaks was responsible for their NDA and libel threat – had at best a misconceived notion of law. The impression was that they were making legal stuff up as they went along, and that law was ultimately something which bound others but not them.
Against this background, I blogged about the extradition case. This was not because I have a particular interest in international law, but for another simple reason. It appeared to me that there was a perhaps concerted effort by individuals with significant media power to misrepresent the applicable legal issues so that the due process of an investigation into an alleged rape and sexual assaults would be frustrated and discredited.
This just seemed wrong. And so I started – first on Twitter, and then on blogs – to challenge what were false and misleading statements about the extradition case.
However, this did not go down well, at least with Assange’s supporters.
Here I am being denounced by Wikileaks to their 1.6 million followers.
(I am now actually blocked by Wikileaks on Twitter, which I think is kind of ironic.)
But such tweeting and blogging seemed the right thing to do, and – despite the abuse – I am glad that the debate in respect of the extradition is more informed by correct statements of the law than it otherwise would be.
Most of the critics of my posts on the Assange extradition miss a simple but crucial important point.
This is not really about Assange. I have not met him, and although I regard him as a serial fantasist when it comes to the law, I have no idea whether he is guilty or not guilty of the allegations. It also matters nothing to me whether he is convicted or acquitted. Indeed, if the investigation and criminal proceedings close down by their own volition then I would not give it a second thought.
It is about due process. It is about the circumstances in which people with media or political power can seek to undermine a criminal investigation into rape and sexual assault by promoting misinformation about the law and legal process.
This matters, and an interest in confronting this misdirection provides a complete explanation for why I have followed the case in the way I have done.
The strange paradox is that I have been implicitly criticised for placing into the public domain materials and information which supporters of Wikileaks and Assange do not want to have circulated. They instead want their version of events to be adopted without query.
That said, I have always been a fan of the principle of Wikileaks. (I was especially happy when the “sacred” texts of the Scientology cult was placed by Wikileaks into the public domain.) There is an important public interest in the continuance of the Wikileaks project, but its future really should be de-coupled from the personal matters of any one individual.
The rights of Assange are important; but so is due process.
And complainants of rape and sexual abuse have rights too.
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23 Responses to Julian and Me – (perhaps) a final word
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*sits back and waits for various woo merchants/cultists/general fuckwits to explode in self-righteous fury*
Good points well made. Wikileaks should get back to doing what it does best – giving whistle blowers a safe anonymous platform to expose misdeeds.
I’ve very much appreciated your coverage on WikiLeaks and Assange.
I do have to raise a question, though. You say you support the principle of Wikileaks; what is that principle? My concern is that the principle of Wikileaks, questions around any ulterior motives that Julian Assange may or may not have aside, is that everything is fair game for release. Although much of, for instance, the Afghan war logs should have been out there anyway, some of what was released had the potential (and I freely admit that there is no evidence that my fears have come to pass) to harm people mentioned in them. I don’t see why posting anyone’s social security number would be in the public interest. I suppose I’m saying that I do want Wikileaks to exercise some journalist responsibility and that there are some things that a news source might know that it shouldn’t publish. Given the reactions of Assange, in his capacity as editor of Wikileaks, to the idea, I do worry what else he might put out there.
In the way you were pleased when the Scientology leaks came out, I was particularly impressed by the ones around Trafigura. However, I think the problem I raise does make it a curate’s egg.
maybe this may help…http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/unscrewing-security/2011/09/full-disclosure-uncensored-wikileaks-security-and-the-guardian/index.htm
Very well put!
A mate of mine does know Assange having met him several times. His view is that Assange has a Messiah complex. I think that is a fair observation. I am amused by the idea that he seems to think he will be safer from America in Ecuador than in Sweden.
David Landon Cole also makes an excellent point. Responsible publication is one thing, being careless with privacy is quite another. It makes Wikileaks vulnerable to abuse (for example in another Valerie Plame case).
Another excellent article by the always well worded Mr Green!
I have followed your blogs and tweets on this subject. I’m certainly not conversant on everything, but I feel that your presence in the media has helped keep the focus on the legal issues, rather than the personalities.
Thanks for all the hard work, and I’m sorry for the abuse you’ve been dealt.
Please make it the final word from you on Julian Assange. Would be good for you also: you wouldn’t be “denounced” and wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.
People suffer from very simplistic minds. We all try to simplify matters to a level we can understand. At the lowest level this boils down to goodies/baddies or black and white thinking. This is anathema to any proper analysis of the Assange issues.
Assange has very bravely facilitated earth shattering disclosures of misdeeds and outright criminality at the highest levels. Not just US crimes but those of many other countries and organisations.
The keystone issue in all this is that Assange is highly vulnerable to some kind of extra-judicial attack from the US govt or a third party acting for them. I think it is ridiculous to ignore this. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the Swedish allegations, regardless of the grave mishandling of the investigations in Sweden, there is no way anyone can guarantee Assange’s safety from persecution by the US or their agents – and this is something the Swedish authorities have pointedly refused to even consider.
Assange is only relatively safe in the public eye. This explains in part his attention seeking. There is a significant risk even if he makes it to Ecuador that he will not be safe. If he goes to Sweden he will be imprisoned without trial and without charge for an unlimited amount of time. Several months seems to be an average. He will be tried in secret by a judge and 3 lay judges – a flawed system that has been under serious question since long before Assange’s case. Furthermore – there is nothing to stop them temporarily surrendering Assange to the US at any time during the process.
Now it’s an injustice if Assange did abuse those two women and they never get any legal redress. Ideally they should have their day in court and a fair hearing. But I don’t think that is possible now. So much ‘face’ is at stake for the Swedes and so much adverse media attention makes it hard if not impossible to get a fair trial.
In Assange’s position (were I guilty or innocent of these allegations) I would not willingly go to Sweden. I cannot imagine any guarantees that would make me feel it was safe to do so – and he hasn’t been offered any guarantees at all. I wonder if Mr Green would willingly surrender himself either? A silly hypothetical question perhaps but one I think people should ask themselves when judging Assange.
No-one can say if he’s guilty or innocent. What evidence is ‘out’ seems very insubstantial and unlikely to lead to prosecution (even in Sweden) against someone who is not in some way a special target. The Swedish police may of course have other evidence, but it seems unlikely given how much that should be confidential is already out.
Valuable though Mr Green’s legal opinions are they are but one piece of the jigsaw. I do feel a measure of sympathy for the personal attacks he’s recieved after putting them forward.
So far the earth remains reassuringly unshattered.
The key word in AAMVN’s post is “extra-judicial” – the whole point of DAG’s posts is that they concentrate on the judicial, in a rather old fashioned principled enlightenment way that I find very reassuring.
AAMVN’s post demonstrates the faults that DAG identifies in Assange’s proponents. In some cases these are deliberate misdirection, e.g., asking for assurances that can’t be given, and in other special pleading that the law that applies to others can’t be applied to Assange because he is a “Special One”. He isn’t.
The paradox for Assange is that he wants to attack the structures of power while at the same time claiming to insist on them upholding for him as an individual all his civil protections. It’s rather like Henry David Thoreau writing about the wilderness at Walden but taking his washing home to his mother.
Dear Neil -
‘So far the earth remains reassuringly unshattered.’
Are you KIDDING? Where have you BEEN?
The earth is NOT reassuringly unshattered, though maybe it looks like that from wherever you are.
Tell that to the starving, the hungry, the asylum seeker, the tortured, the incarcerated, the indefinitely detained, to the rendered, to the occupants of the illegal black holes, tell that to Adnan Latif (you can’t – too late – he died in that hell hole Obama PROMISED to close) and the rest of the Yemenis the US have cleared for release but REFUSE to send home because they have determined that Yemenis IN GENERAL are a security risk….tell that to the victims of totally illegal drone strikes
weep world weep break your heart and wail to see people so cocooned, so asleep, they think the earth is not shattered – ‘first they came for….’
‘….the whole point of DAG’s posts is that they concentrate on the judicial, in a rather old fashioned principled enlightenment way that I find very reassuring.’
The whole point of the past decade and the continuing trend is that governments no longer bother with the ‘judicial’ if they don’t want to. Alternatively they slip through laws, such as the proposed permitted ‘secrecy’ measures in trials designed to conceal UK complicity with torture currently working their way to becoming ‘judicially’ enshrined in the Justice and Security Bill.
Finding the judicial reassuring is certainly old fashioned (and there is nothing wrong with old fashioned per se in my opinion), but it’s old fashioned in the worst sense – it’s out of joint, out of time, and as gullible as standing on the hard shoulder of the motorway eyes tightly closed clinging to a past vision of the little roads that we knew back when traffic was rare, and concluding that there is no threat to pedestrians. I don’t like this – I hate it – and I truly wish it wasn’t so, and if we wake up, there may still be time to turn it around, but doing a three monkey denial is just the way to cement it in.
Horror of horrors – what can be worse than knowing the grief of the earth? Only to know that people are averting their eyes in denial…
Please join in the struggle if you care about these things.
Peace,
violet
I think the most telling statement was “This is not really about Assange”. Then you provide strong supportive evidential statements. Can your decriers claim to be equally disinterested?
I would like to echo others comments and thank you for the stalwart effort to keep the narrative focused on the facts and the evidence rather than the bluff and the bluster.
Another excellent blog entry David. I must admit I didn’t know much about Assange, and every time I see him, I find him more arrogant then before. I am disappointed in the number of ‘celebs’ who are doing their best to make this out as some conspiratorial CIA rendition, rather than the due process it is. This is particularly prevalent as some of them were individuals I had greatly respected (Michael Moore???). Even with my limited knowledge, three things have always shone through for me in this case, 1) At what point after he arrived in Sweden looking to set up, did Assange suddenly decide Sweden was in fact a ‘US stooge’ who would extradite him at the first opportunity? 2) Why do none of his famous female supporters seem to be stating that what he is alleged to have done is not “real” rape? 3) Why was he so scared about extradition from Sweden when he was infinitely more likely to be extradited from the UK given our track record?
absolutely agree with everything you have written . This has got to be about the correct application of the law without fear or favour . And I congratulate you on your rigo.
ur in this matter
Now Putin has joined in on Assange’s side, which takes us through the looking glass. I’m sure old Vlad deserves to have a leak named after him in gratitude.
Like Mr Green, I have no view one way or other about the allegations made against Mr Assange. He is wanted for questioning by the Swedish authorities. With the English courts “due process” was followed and the European Arrest Warrant was held to be valid. (Having said this, I was not particularly happy with the Supreme Court dismissing the final application of Assange’s counsel which related to some of the judgments referring to material which had not been argued before the court. I felt that these matters ought to have been aired in open court).
My own real interest in the matter was kindled when he went to the Ecuadorean Embassy. This raised some interesting legal points about the status of embassies and their personnel and also the question of diplomatic asylum. English law did not permit the “storming” of the embassy as was suggested in some quarters. Furthermore, it is long established that the UK does not generally recognise diplomatic asylum even though in some instances the UK has allowed people to stay in its embassies as a humanitarian act. In a blogpost, I concluded that Ecuador was not correct in international law to grant diplomatic asylum to Mr Assange in their London Embassy.
A further interesting matter was what would be the position if Mr Assange somehow got to Sweden. A website referred to by very few bloggers is that of the Swedish government itself which has an excellent section of Extradition. This makes it clear that Sweden may not extradite a person if there is any possibility of the death penalty. Also, the Swedish courts consider the legality of an extradition. If the court decides extradition to be unlawful then it may not happen. If the court decides that it would be lawful then the final decision rests with the government.
Whether some people like it or not, the more serious legal bloggers in England have tried to take an objective look at this and have expressed their views. Thankfully, we have the right and the freedom to do just that !
Swedish government
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Why does Assange simply hand himself if, secure his acquittal (assuming he does not admit the offence), then get on with what ever his real agenda is?
Thanks for this post. You’ve gone a long way to enlightening the legally clueless, like me.
“………….all about due process”. What is that and can it be found in Britain, say in Hillsborough?
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I’m glad I missed the media scare. I hope eeinythvrg goes well for Julian or I might just have to learn to abseil from a helicopter and do the Matrix thing to bring him home to safety. Hey, why hasn’t anyone done that yet? It’s an idea to float.