cypherpunks

getting a fair trial

🤨 did you read any of the links in my last comment?

(are you suggesting you think that he could actually be extradited and found not guilty, or are you saying you think he deserves to go to prison and that is what you mean by saying he would be "better off" not fighting extradition?)

First amendment is given to us by our creators it says so in the us constution everyone gets it period

Neither the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any of its other amendments use the word "creator". You're probably thinking of the Declaration of Independence (the famous second sentence of which is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."). The DoI predates the Constitution and its amendments by over a decade and has no force of law.

There is a strong legal argument to be made, including some historical court rulings, that at least some of the rights in the Bill of Rights do apply to non-citizens - although some of those arguments are limited to when non-citizens are on US soil (which Assange was not when he engaged in the acts of journalism which he is being prosecuted for).

However, one of the US prosecutors (Gordon Kromberg) specifically told the court in his declaration in support of the Assange extradition:

Concerning any First Amendment challenge, the United States could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment [...]

Former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo also wrote in his memoir Never Give An Inch:

Julian Assange has no First Amendment privileges. He is not a U.S. citizen.

Other US officials have made similar statements.

You can read more here:

• https://thedissenter.org/countdown-to-day-x-us-assange-no-first-amendment-rights/
• https://www.jurist.org/features/2023/08/21/law-professor-marjorie-cohn-extradition-of-julian-assange-threatens-first-amendment-and-freedom-of-press/

Last month, the British High Court gave the US prosecutors until April 16 to submit a declaration including assurances that "the applicant is permitted to rely on the first amendment" and that he "is afforded the same first amendment protections as a United States citizen" (those are the British court's words).

The assurance the US has now submitted did not actually repudiate the prosecutors earlier explicit statement that the "the United States could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment" but instead said merely that he can "seek to raise" the first amendment in his defense. But, he has already been seeking to raise the first amendment to stop his extradition, and these "assurances" that he can seek to raise it again in the US come from the same prosecutors who explicitly argued (and again, have not repudiated their argument) to the British court that he is not entitled to first amendment protection because he is a foreign national.

You didn't answer my question: Better off than what?

He is better off in the USA he can clam first amendment rights freedom of the press

The US position is that the first amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens, and also that it isn't possible to make a public interest defense to espionage charges.

also he won’t get death the worst is 20 to life

The current set of charges carry up to 175 years and the US has thus far refused to guarantee to the British court that they won't add more charges after they extradite him.

And even if he was "only" facing 20 to life, what would that be better than? He isn't charged with anything anywhere else.

Update:

https://twitter.com/Stella_Assange/status/1780258878237667377

the US didn’t have to coerce them to kick him out.

You think the $4.2B IMF loan package they got 30 days before his expulsion wasn't contingent on revoking his asylum? Here is evidence that it was, two months before it happened.

He essentially got kicked out for installing spyware and listening devices into the embassy’s private network.

What? The listening devices and hidden cameras were in fact installed by the Spanish private security company who was ostensibly working for the embassy but who it turned out was also working for the CIA, for the purpose of spying on Assange (including in the bathroom, where he would go to meet with his lawyers due to his suspicion that the other rooms had been bugged), as has been well documented in both US and Spanish courts:

• https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/23/inenglish/1571817241_796975.html

• https://english.elpais.com/spain/2023-03-29/spanish-company-provided-cia-with-information-leading-to-julian-assanges-arrest.html

• https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-22/a-spanish-company-and-the-cia-found-guilty-of-violating-rights-of-julian-assanges-visitors.html#

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_of_Julian_Assange

What is it that people in the UK don’t understand about ‘indeterminate detention without charge’?

He was detained without charge for many years, but there are charges now: the US unsealed their 2018 indictment against him immediately after they coerced Ecuador into revoking his asylum in April 2019, and they added more charges a month later.

As the linked article explains, he is currently charged with 17 counts of espionage and 1 count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He remains in His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh while fighting the US's extradition request.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julian_Assange

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom says the current count is 65 countries, but cites https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-countries-to-have-gained-independence-from-the-same-country which says 66 (4 + 62).

France and Spain are in second and third place with 28 and 17, respectively.

Building an optional, immutable/composable version of postmarketOS

that sounds great! is there more information somewhere about this plan yet?

Tuta is most likely a honeypot, and in any case it is pseudo-open source so it's offtopic in this community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese

See also:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_mountain
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_lake
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Maple_Syrup_Producers#Strategic_reserve

As the image transcript in the post body explains, the image at the bottom is a scene from a well-known 1998 film (which, according to Wikipedia, was in 2014 selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant").

This meme will not make as much sense to people who have not seen the film. You can watch the referenced scene here. The context is that the main character, The Dude (played by Jeff Bridges) has recently had his private residence invaded by a group of nihilists with a pet marmot (actually portrayed by a ferret) and they have threatened to "cut off his Johnson". In an attempt to express sympathy, The Dude's friend Walter (played by John Goodman) points out that, in addition to the home invasion and threats, the nihilists' exotic pet is also illegal. The Dude's retort "what, are you a fucking park ranger now" is expressing irritation with that observation, because it is insignificant compared with the threat of the removal of his penis.

This meme attempts to draw a parallel between this humorous scene and XZ developer Lasse Collin's observation that the XZ backdoor was also a violation of Debian's software licensing policies.

Thank you for reading my artist's statement.