Killing Julian Assange would send a message: Julian Assange is not an American citizen and he has no constitutional rights. So, there's no reason that the CIA can't kill him. . . . Legally, we may not be able to do a lot to Assange since he's not an American, but killing him would do more to protect our classified data than any new security system.I wonder if there would be any consequences to our Government murdering an Australian Citizen. And let's be clear this can't be "an unexpected heart attack" for Hawkin's strategy to work. It has to be clear (if deniable) that we did this.
Also I am continually depressed at how conservatives fail to understand the founding documents. The Declaration of Independence is for all people, not just for Americans. We might not have the power to enforce it throughout the world, but the idas that Americans have rights and foreigners just don't strikes me as mean and unamerican.
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So, talk about killing Assange is ridiculous, I grant you that. At the same time, making classified information public is an aggressive act against the US government, with the potential for severe consequences.
I'm not sure that someone doing that should be able to hide behind Free Speech any more than someone who, say, sold secrets to the Russians during the Cold War.
I'm not saying that the two are identical, but I do think they are in the same category. While both are speech acts, not all speech acts are protected.
And I think, when someone makes a speech act like this that is a real, legitimately aggressive act against a foreign power, that person should not be surprised when the foregign power takes aggressive action right back at them. And I think the foreign power is justified in doing so.
Nations punish other nations' citizens for crimes all the time.
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