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Is WikiLeaks Nearing its Death Bed?
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 08 November 2011, 07:12 IST |
8 Comments
However, the intellectual revolutionist faces a bleak future ahead as it's most likely that he would find himself in a Swedish prison in no time if he fails to impede the extradition proceedings. His chances of escaping the extradition is highly unlikely and as his mother said, Assange seems to be closer to U.S. extradition now. There isn't much hope left and "it seems unlikely that his extradition to Sweden will be stopped," Christensen said. "Extradition from Sweden to the U.S. in this case is pretty unlikely. The Swedes will undoubtedly get pressure from the U.S., but the fallout from such a move would be immense, and so I think it would be surprise if it happened," he added.
Assange with his controversial cable leaks, faces legal actions in the United States and the prosecutors are thinking over criminal charges. He would be trialed under Espionage Act, and other legal and constitutional issues for the WikiLeaks exposures.
While hoping that Assange receives a full and fair trial of the charges against him, Renner says, "It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will prosecute Assange. If Assange is extradited to Sweden it could make it easier for the U.S. to prosecute him for violations of the Espionage Act. If the U.S. prosecutes Assange, it would be a severe attack on First Amendment rights and create a chilling effect on the press and on whistleblowers in the U.S. The prosecution of Assange or Wikileaks would be the same as criminally charging a newspaper. It would be a challenge to freedom of the press in the U.S."
"The Obama Administration has shown a greater propensity to prosecute whistleblowers than previous administrations have. I applaud those who join in using their rights of peaceful assembly and free speech to call on the administration to stop prosecuting whistleblowers, and to pardon whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, Bradley Birkenfeld and Tom Drake," he added.
However, Fink says, "Nobody has confirmed that he will be extradited to U.S. U.S. might want that but under what basis is very questionable because as a Wikileaks person, Julian has not broken any law. He (or lets better say Wikileaks as an organization) might have pissed of some government officials heavily but that's only the return for their abuse of powers. The government is elected to serve the people. So transparency should be the prime directive in a democracy. But U.S, has seem to have forgotten what a democracy is all about." "At the current time, it's a private case about rape in Sweden and that's it. I can not answer how much impact it would have to the Wikileaks organisation but I strongly believe they have well planned that case way ahead and have other people ready to take over. Julian is not irreplaceable," he added.
