Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been set free, time served.
On Monday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called him a “generational hero,” celebrating his release from a decade and a half in confinement, under threat of U.S. prosecution for publishing
Loathed by the American establishment, left and right, Mr. Assange had ruffled feathers of the war machine and then the Democratic Party — the latter for publishing the contents of Hillary Clinton’s infamous email stash. The attempt to get him to America from overseas was a complex (and failed) ordeal that pushed him first into confinement in an Ecuadorian embassy and then placed in a maximum-security London prison.
Assange, who admitted guilt in a plea deal deal, did not agree to set foot on the American continent, so the court hearing took place in a U.S. District Court in Saipan on Tuesday.
“The bad news,” RFK, Jr., went on, “is that he had to plea guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense info. Which means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and extending their jurisdiction globally to non-citizens.”
Empire’s gonna imperialize.
While Mike Pence, the 48th Vice President, fully objected to the plea deal, Representative Thomas Massie (R.-Ky) echoed Kennedy’s sentiments: “My plane landed in DC & I just heard Julian Assange will soon be free due to a deal. His liberation is great news, but it’s a travesty that he’s already spent so much time in jail. Obama, Trump, & Biden should have never pursued this prosecution. Pardon Snowden & Free Ross now.”
Massie mentions two more persecuted individuals, leaker of unconstitutional NSA secrets, Edward Snowden (hiding from the American empire in Russia) and darknet (“Silk Road”) publisher Ross Ulbricht (a prisoner now in Tucson’s federal penitentiary, sentenced to two life terms).
In a follow-up tweet, Kennedy offered “Next steps,” including erecting “a monument to Assange in Washington as a civics lesson for the American public about the importance of free speech,” pardoning Ed Snowden, and releasing Ross Ulbricht … “to show our commitment to transactional freedom.”
That latter commutation has been promised by former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump. But “transactional freedom” is not exactly the byword of our age.
And statuary is hardly in vogue.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly
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1 reply on “Assange: Freedom & Statuary”
RFK is an idiot!