Posted on 08/15/2010 8:18:39 AM PDT by kristinn
Julian Assange, founder of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, will apply for Swedish publishing licence. That would give the website protection under the Scandinavian country's whistleblower protection laws.
"We're dealing with organizations that don't obey the law. We're dealing with intelligence agencies," Julian Assange told news agency TT.
The WikiLeaks founder vowed Saturday to publish the last batch of secret documents on the Afghan war in "a couple of weeks", despite Pentagon pleas they would put further lives at risk.
The websites server is located in Sweden and the organization passes information via Sweden to protect sources. Sweden has a strong tradition of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Protection of journalistic sources in Sweden is very strong.
"Sweden is vital for our work. We have had long-term support from the Swedish people and the Swedish legal system. Our servers were initially based in the United States and moved to Sweden early on in 2007," he told the newswire.
"There's actually a small industry in Sweden; a new sort of refugee exists in the world, which is publishers. It is I think something for Swedes to be quite proud of: that they are facilitating a strong and free press," he said.
But as the website has no licence to publish material in Sweden, and therefore placing the server in Sweden does not give WikiLeaks automatic protection.
(Excerpt) Read more at swedishwire.com ...
Actually, the person you were responding to is correct. “Dual criminality” is usually a requirement for extradition. I don’t know what is in the treaty between Sweden and the US, but considering Assange has made it this far, he isn’t stupid, and it is known that he has been limiting his travels to countries where he feels safe. For a moment, imagine if the roles were reversed. Do you think the US would extradite someone running a Wikileaks-like site and posting Russian military secrets?
Actually, the person you were responding to is correct. “Dual criminality” is usually a requirement for extradition. I don’t know what is in the treaty between Sweden and the US, but considering Assange has made it this far, he isn’t stupid, and it is known that he has been limiting his travels to countries where he feels safe. For a moment, imagine if the roles were reversed. Do you think the US would extradite someone running a Wikileaks-like site and posting Russian military secrets?
Actually, that argument does not exist here.
Dual Criminality is in place here.
It is illegal to leak military secrets of either country, or of their allies.
For a moment, imagine if the roles were reversed. Do you think the US would extradite someone running a Wikileaks-like site and posting Russian military secrets?
Are you seriously comparing the diplomatic and legal relationship of Sweden & the US to that of Russia??
Sweden is an ALLY, and our reciprocal agreements cover these crimes.Watch for him to show up here on these shores sooner rather than later.
Thank you for your post.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.