8 ms·

Yes, First Amendment protections apply to non-Americans. However, as you say, Assange is being prosecuted for conspiracy to hack computers, not for his speech.

slg 8y ago
Non-Americans are certainly protected by the Constitution while in the US, but I thought there was still a legal debate about whether the US Constitution fully applies to foreign nationals while outside the US. Hasn't that long been the legal excuse used for things like international mass surveillance and what goes on in Guantanamo Bay?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. For the US to prosecute Assange, they have to prosecute him in the US, where he does enjoy First Amendment protections, as the First Amendment limits what Congress (and via the Fourteenth, state/local as well) can do.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It also limits what speech congress can make illegal, effectively controlling what the executive branch can do because of speech.
  - oliveshell 8y ago
    Exactly. If a person is on trial in the U.S. for breaking U.S. law, then U.S. constitutional protections apply— regardless of citizenship or where the alleged crime took place.
  - slg 8y ago
    I think you are misinterpreting the question. The US Constitution obviously has no legal impact on the laws of Saudi Arabia. The question is whether the US government needs to follow the US Constitution when dealing with a non-US citizen on non-US soil. There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. That is why US citizens involved with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or similar hostile organizations will occasionally receive a domestic trial in the criminal justice system while non-citizens generally only face military trials if anything.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. It's an interesting situation, as there's counter-examples; the Constitution doesn't, for example, appear to permit assassinations (certainly not of citizens without a trial), but they went ahead and droned Anwar al-Awlaki without any apparent legal consequences.
      - cbnotfromthere 8y ago
        You seem to willingly confusing "assassinations" with "acts of war". Anwar Al-Awlaki was unquestionably an enemy combatant due to his overt belonging to a non-state actor engaged in military combat with the United States.
  - droithomme 8y ago
    > The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. First Amendment deals with US federal government and states. Neither the federal government nor the states can prosecute you for free speech you engage in as US citizen or resident while in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government might choose to prosecute you, but the first amendment does prohibit the US government from prosecuting you for speech made overseas as well as on US soil. An american journalist is living in Brazil and writes an article critical of the US government. The US government can not prosecute them simply because they wrote the article while out of the country.
- austincheney 8y ago
  Guantanamo Bay is American soil similar to embassies in foreign cities.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    Embassies aren't "foreign soil". There are restrictions based on international treaties, but they're nothing like foreign soil at all.
  - slg 8y ago
    >Guantanamo Bay is American soil That doesn't seem to be 100% settled law either. The US government has argued both sides in different court cases.
- Iv 8y ago
  It would be a pretty fucked up logic if US laws applied outside US but the document that prevents US laws from becoming tyrannical would not. That would simply be evil.
pytester 8y ago
He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value on behalf of Manning and encouraging him to leak more information (Obama's DOJ refused to make this charge because it's something all journalists do).
- acqq 8y ago
  > He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value They don't claim Assange extracted a password. They just claim that Assange said in the chat "no luck so far"! That is, that he wrote to Manning that he tried. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... The indictment is "conspiracy" with Manning. So there's certainly something to back up the claim from this title https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11-2019-1.5093429/julian-assange-s-arrest-is-a-vendetta-not-justice-says-friend-vaughan-smith-1.5093432 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11... namely, that "Assange's arrest is 'a vendetta, not justice'" For more context, at the moment this news from ca one month ago have even more sense: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-manning-judge-jails-wikileaks-case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann... "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case"
  - nickysielicki 8y ago
    > Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to Assange. Fun to see them exonerate themselves for using broken security by calling a hash a, "portion of the password".
- ryanlol 8y ago
  No, he's being prosecuted for allegedly agreeing to extract a password from a hash. Not for actually doing so, massive difference.
  - rosser 8y ago
rayiner 8y ago
The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urquidez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urqui... > The Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply where United States agents searched and seized property located in a foreign country owned by a nonresident alien in the United States. Chief Justice Rehnquist authored the opinion for the Court, joined by Justices White, Scalia, Kennedy and O'Connor, contending that "the people" intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment were the people of the United States, and that the defendant's "legal but involuntary presence" on U.S. soil (a direct result of his arrest) failed to create a sufficient relationship with the U.S. to allow him to call upon the Constitution for protection.[1]
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Well... the first amendment doesn't mention the people. It just says "Congress shall make no law..." So I'm not sure the same logic applies.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. How does a Fourth Amendment case turning on the interpretation of specific language that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? (Also, since the alleged conspiracy was related to acts that would be committed within the US, by a US citizen, it's far from clear whether, even if the rationale of the case you cite did apply, the result would still be that there was insufficient relationship to the U.S. with regard to the act in question.) Note that I don't think the First Amendment has any bearing on this case because of the actual conduct at issue, but if it did, I'm not seeing how the case you point to would make it inapplicable based on Assange’s citizenship and location.
  - mike00632 8y ago
    >... that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? It's commonly understood that the conduct of foreigners abroad is not protected by American rights. That is the legal basis for most of the 'War on Terror' military actions and one of the key reasons why the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was objectionable. The way our system understands the law means that American citizen Anway al-Awlaki (and his son) had rights that were violated when he was killed.
toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
That’s true, but you don’t get clicks from outrage by just saying the boring truth. I’ve also been reading rants from people who think the US is going to throw a bunch of other charges at him when he gets here, which is just hilariously wrong. In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. But again, that doesn’t feed the conspiracy-minded mob or generate clicks. Edit response to emiliobumachar: If the US broke international law and their treaties with the UK it would be a really bad look at the very least. Conversely if that doesn’t happen what are you going to be convinced of? (Sorry about responding this way, but after two months of getting no response from the mods about rate limiting me, I’m just adapting.)
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  If charges B-Z are in fact thrown into the mix after the plane lands, would you then be convinced of a politically motivated conspiracy?
- acqq 8y ago
  > In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. Does anybody think UK would not give all the permissions when asked?
  - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
    The charges have to be based on new information, and the UK judiciary isn’t overtly political. All told I think Assange will go down for the hacking, and then be off to Sweden. After that I suspect the world at large will be done with him. He isn’t anything like as important as he and his few supporters seem to think.

slg 8y ago

Non-Americans are certainly protected by the Constitution while in the US, but I thought there was still a legal debate about whether the US Constitution fully applies to foreign nationals while outside the US. Hasn't that long been the legal excuse used for things like international mass surveillance and what goes on in Guantanamo Bay?

ceejayoz 8y ago
The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. For the US to prosecute Assange, they have to prosecute him in the US, where he does enjoy First Amendment protections, as the First Amendment limits what Congress (and via the Fourteenth, state/local as well) can do.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  It also limits what speech congress can make illegal, effectively controlling what the executive branch can do because of speech.
- oliveshell 8y ago
  Exactly. If a person is on trial in the U.S. for breaking U.S. law, then U.S. constitutional protections apply— regardless of citizenship or where the alleged crime took place.
- slg 8y ago
  I think you are misinterpreting the question. The US Constitution obviously has no legal impact on the laws of Saudi Arabia. The question is whether the US government needs to follow the US Constitution when dealing with a non-US citizen on non-US soil. There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. That is why US citizens involved with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or similar hostile organizations will occasionally receive a domestic trial in the criminal justice system while non-citizens generally only face military trials if anything.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. It's an interesting situation, as there's counter-examples; the Constitution doesn't, for example, appear to permit assassinations (certainly not of citizens without a trial), but they went ahead and droned Anwar al-Awlaki without any apparent legal consequences.
    - cbnotfromthere 8y ago
      You seem to willingly confusing "assassinations" with "acts of war". Anwar Al-Awlaki was unquestionably an enemy combatant due to his overt belonging to a non-state actor engaged in military combat with the United States.
- droithomme 8y ago
  > The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. First Amendment deals with US federal government and states. Neither the federal government nor the states can prosecute you for free speech you engage in as US citizen or resident while in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government might choose to prosecute you, but the first amendment does prohibit the US government from prosecuting you for speech made overseas as well as on US soil. An american journalist is living in Brazil and writes an article critical of the US government. The US government can not prosecute them simply because they wrote the article while out of the country.
austincheney 8y ago
Guantanamo Bay is American soil similar to embassies in foreign cities.
- belltaco 8y ago
  Embassies aren't "foreign soil". There are restrictions based on international treaties, but they're nothing like foreign soil at all.
- slg 8y ago
  >Guantanamo Bay is American soil That doesn't seem to be 100% settled law either. The US government has argued both sides in different court cases.
Iv 8y ago
It would be a pretty fucked up logic if US laws applied outside US but the document that prevents US laws from becoming tyrannical would not. That would simply be evil.

pytester 8y ago

He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value on behalf of Manning and encouraging him to leak more information (Obama's DOJ refused to make this charge because it's something all journalists do).

acqq 8y ago
> He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value They don't claim Assange extracted a password. They just claim that Assange said in the chat "no luck so far"! That is, that he wrote to Manning that he tried. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... The indictment is "conspiracy" with Manning. So there's certainly something to back up the claim from this title https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11-2019-1.5093429/julian-assange-s-arrest-is-a-vendetta-not-justice-says-friend-vaughan-smith-1.5093432 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11... namely, that "Assange's arrest is 'a vendetta, not justice'" For more context, at the moment this news from ca one month ago have even more sense: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-manning-judge-jails-wikileaks-case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann... "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case"
- nickysielicki 8y ago
  > Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to Assange. Fun to see them exonerate themselves for using broken security by calling a hash a, "portion of the password".
ryanlol 8y ago
No, he's being prosecuted for allegedly agreeing to extract a password from a hash. Not for actually doing so, massive difference.
- rosser 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urquidez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urqui... > The Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply where United States agents searched and seized property located in a foreign country owned by a nonresident alien in the United States. Chief Justice Rehnquist authored the opinion for the Court, joined by Justices White, Scalia, Kennedy and O'Connor, contending that "the people" intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment were the people of the United States, and that the defendant's "legal but involuntary presence" on U.S. soil (a direct result of his arrest) failed to create a sufficient relationship with the U.S. to allow him to call upon the Constitution for protection.[1]

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Well... the first amendment doesn't mention the people. It just says "Congress shall make no law..." So I'm not sure the same logic applies.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. How does a Fourth Amendment case turning on the interpretation of specific language that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? (Also, since the alleged conspiracy was related to acts that would be committed within the US, by a US citizen, it's far from clear whether, even if the rationale of the case you cite did apply, the result would still be that there was insufficient relationship to the U.S. with regard to the act in question.) Note that I don't think the First Amendment has any bearing on this case because of the actual conduct at issue, but if it did, I'm not seeing how the case you point to would make it inapplicable based on Assange’s citizenship and location.
- mike00632 8y ago
  >... that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? It's commonly understood that the conduct of foreigners abroad is not protected by American rights. That is the legal basis for most of the 'War on Terror' military actions and one of the key reasons why the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was objectionable. The way our system understands the law means that American citizen Anway al-Awlaki (and his son) had rights that were violated when he was killed.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago

That’s true, but you don’t get clicks from outrage by just saying the boring truth. I’ve also been reading rants from people who think the US is going to throw a bunch of other charges at him when he gets here, which is just hilariously wrong. In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. But again, that doesn’t feed the conspiracy-minded mob or generate clicks. Edit response to emiliobumachar: If the US broke international law and their treaties with the UK it would be a really bad look at the very least. Conversely if that doesn’t happen what are you going to be convinced of? (Sorry about responding this way, but after two months of getting no response from the mods about rate limiting me, I’m just adapting.)

emiliobumachar 8y ago
If charges B-Z are in fact thrown into the mix after the plane lands, would you then be convinced of a politically motivated conspiracy?
acqq 8y ago
> In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. Does anybody think UK would not give all the permissions when asked?
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  The charges have to be based on new information, and the UK judiciary isn’t overtly political. All told I think Assange will go down for the hacking, and then be off to Sweden. After that I suspect the world at large will be done with him. He isn’t anything like as important as he and his few supporters seem to think.