Can Assange really be charged with espionage if he is a non-US citizen and was not operating within US borders? Wouldn’t that technically mean that say, a Serbian engaging in espionage on US forces in 1999 could be extradited from a third country and tried for spying?
My understanding of the espionage act is that jurisdiction is not dependent on citizenship or where he is, but on the nature of the information and how it was obtained. It isn’t about who or where, it is about what he did and to whom.
Jurisdiction sounds as if it would be similar to jurisdiction over terrorists that kill Americans ... even if the Americans are killed in a foreign country by a non-citizen that never set foot in the U.S (like the Lockerbie bomber and Pablo Escobar, for instance).
SnakeDoc
That’s a good question. But I think if he were engaging in battlefield espionage—especially if the force were on his (the spy’s) own territory—then that would be a legitimate act of war, and the US might be barred by convention (or common sense) from indicting him.
Are you familiar with the case of Lord Haw-Haw?