> And that it applies to foreign citizens who have – quite sensibly – never set foot on your soil?

There is a lot of precedent here. Break the law in another country, and you may very well find yourself tried in their courts if you ever step into their jurisdiction. It's not like the US is snatching him off the streets in a foreign country under cover of darkness and dragging him to our jurisdiction, we are using very well established legal channels.

Assange was snatched from a foreign country.

Was he? He's not in the US. He fled the UK's jurisdiction to accept the jurisdiction of Ecuador, but of course that carries the risk that Ecuador could change their mind and transfer him to another jurisdiction, which they did. Perhaps the next stop is Sweden, then the US. In any case all of it is being done through accepted legal channels.

If the US wanted him on our soil without regards to consequences, we could certainly have him in a US jail in a matter of hours.

Assange was refused the ability to travel to Ecuador (a country that he became a citizen of) from the UK, which might be a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (Article 44) -- though I'm not a lawyer:

> The receiving State must, even in case of armed conflict, grant facilities in order to enable persons enjoying privileges and immunities, other than nationals of the receiving State, and members of the families of such persons irrespective of their nationality, to leave at the earliest possible moment. It must, in particular, in case of need, place at their disposal the necessary means of transport for themselves and their property.

There is an argument to be made that since he is not embassy personnel he isn't granted any such rights (in fact that's the most likely explanation).

But then again, there is some grey area here -- in the 1984 someone in the Libyan embassy in the UK shot into a crowd killing a police officer[1]. The UK police weren't granted access to investigate whether the individual who did it was embassy personnel (and thus under diplomatic immunity) or not. The UK then cut diplomatic ties with Libya and all the personnel were forced to leave and return to Libya. However, if the UK had the legal right to refuse passage for non-embassy personnel then surely they would've done so and captured all non-embassy personnel for questioning. But they didn't do that.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher

The Vienna Convention certainly does not mean that any state can demand that any other state not prosecute any person of their choice, which is what you seem to be implying.

You never define what "persons enjoying privileges and immunities" means. I doubt very much that it is "any random citizen of a country who happens to be inside their embassy".

> which is what you seem to be implying.

That's not at all what I'm implying.

> You never define what "persons enjoying privileges and immunities" means.

I copied the text directly from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations[1]. From my understanding (as a non-lawyer) it broadly means embassy personnel, which would exclude Julian Assange.

However my point is that there is a case in 1984 where a suspected criminal for a crime committed in the UK (who might not have been embassy personnel) was allowed safe passage with embassy personnel. It's possible they didn't want to deal with additional scandals or didn't think of this avenue, but it is quite strange. However, the fact that the UK threatened to storm the embassy and cut of ties with Ecuador does indicate the political situation is much higher than it was in the 1984 incident.

Ecuador tried to instate Assange as a Ecuadorian Ambassador, but the UK refused their request for diplomatic immunity. So it probably isn't a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (though the UN did state that the UK's actions are a violation of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights[2]).

[1]: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1964/06/19640624%2002-1... [2]: https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

> Ecuador tried to instate Assange as a Ecuadorian Ambassador, but the UK refused their request for diplomatic immunity

No, they tried to appoint him to a subordinate (not “Ambassador”) diplomatic position to Russia. Which does not give him diplomatic immunity in the UK by right. The UK declined to extend such status as a courtesy as it might otherwise do.

> However my point is that there is a case in 1984 where a suspected criminal for a crime committed in the UK (who might not have been embassy personnel) was allowed safe passage with embassy personnel.

Everyone leaving the embassy had their diplomatic status verified when they were stopped, questioned, and frisked on the way out, but it's quite possible the perpetrators were one of those who left before the cordon was thrown up, and if not they were embassy personnel. The act was clearly.a state act of reprisal, so there would be no reason to have it done by unprotected persons.

Ecuador has full right to unilaterally choose their ambassadors, they don't need the approval of the UK. What is true is that the UK can then declare an ambassador persona non grata... But then they must be allowed to leave.

It was a brilliant ploy to get Assange out, if you believed UK would adhere to the Vienna convention. Unfortunately they didn't, and there's no one around who are willing and able hold them to it.

Ok, so every time an American is arrested abroad, Trump could declare them a diplomat and the country would have to let them off without charges? This is really what the Vienna Convention requires?

Why doesn’t every country just do this routinely, in that case?

There's no violation; the “privileges and immunities” referenced are those of accredited diplomats to the receiving state, which you only get to be by consent of the receiving state. Assange was never an accredited diplomat to the UK (there was an abandoned effort to get him appointed as a diplomat to Russia, but that provides no mandatory protection under the convention with regard to the UK, and the UK declined to extent diplomatic status as an non-mandated courtesy based on that appointment, so it was abandoned.)

> However, if the UK had the legal right to refuse passage for non-embassy personnel then surely they would've done so and captured all non-embassy personnel for questioning.

Every person exiting the embassy was stopped, frisked, questioned, and photographed by the police; none were held further because they were all diplomatic personnel. (This is not addressing the people who exited before the police through a complete cordon around the embassy, or the material—including certainly he weapons and other evidence—sent out in sealed diplomatic bags thereafter and before the final evacuation of the embassy.

> There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.

>And that it applies to foreign citizens who have – quite sensibly – never set foot on your soil?

Of course it does. That's like saying a foreign terrorist can't be charged for an act of terrorism because they're not a U.S. citizen. Furthermore, because Assange is a foreign national, 1st Amendment protections do not apply in this situation.

There's a [dead] reply that seems to refute this, and I'm not sure why it's dead. The First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Nowhere in there does it mention "citizens". Only "people". And you don't need to be a US citizen to be a person. The first result[0] of a quick Google search suggests that federal courts do indeed believe that the Constitution protects to non-citizens.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2017/01/30/does-th...

Can't say why it was downvoted to oblivion. But I personally don't know what the right answer is. We already rely on SCOTUS to tell us what the First Amendment really means and how it applies, since as written it just says "Congress shall make no law..." which is kinda specific. So it seems like we're past the point where we can interpret any other part of that clause literally.

Now, all disclaimers given, I figure the Constitution ought to apply to anyone within it's jurisdiction, which to my mind means that if you are subject to our jursdiction for criminal purposes, you're subject to our constitution for it's protections as well.

>I figure the Constitution ought to apply to anyone within it's jurisdiction, which to my mind means that if you are subject to our jursdiction for criminal purposes, you're subject to our constitution for it's protections as well.

I fully agree, hopefully the SCOTUS will confirm this in a ruling at some point.

Additionally the Declaration of Independence included this statement:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

I think the consent to be governed should be established whether implied or expressed in a way more specific that just being a person somewhere on earth.

The declaration of independence does specify how consent is expressed. Quoting the relevant section:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

In other words it is by refusing to revolt that people consent to be governed. Revolution doesn't require all that many people, but it requires them to be willing to risk it all. See, for example, the Romanian revolution in 1989. [1] It's one of the most ironic revolutions. Their communist dictator, in an effort to prove his popularity, decided to force tens of thousands of people to appear in a public square to listen to his speech so it could be used as propaganda and broadcast to show his 'popularity.' 'You'll never believe what happened next.' 3 days later following a 2 hour trial their dictator was sentenced to death and executed immediately.

The logic is circular (people consent by not not consenting), but I think reasonable. The reason is that there are many people who, given the choice, would reject consent anytime they failed to achieve victory in a democratic process. That would lead to complete chaos. And revolution is not a particularly high standard. Imagine if 0.1% of the US population (that's around 330k people) chose to move on DC with the goal of aggressively rebooting the government. They'd be near impossible to stop. And even if stopped, it would certainly trigger a rethink of our entire system which would be at least a partial victory. So if you can't get even 1/1000 people willing to risk it all, it's tough to claim that our evils are not sufferable, or are not reparable within the systems available to us.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution#Ceau%C8%99...

>In other words it is by refusing to revolt that people consent to be governed.

My understanding based on the statement "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government" is that this right to revolt is the nuclear option for people who have the ability to alter it and the ends which the government can be destructive towards are the initial rights previously outlined in the document. So if the US government doesn't work to secure these right for an Australian citizen and doesn't express their right to alter or abolish or revolt against the US government then it should not interpret their consent to be governed by US law for actions taken by them outside the US.

Your phrasing there is not the clearest, but if I am understanding you correctly, would that not then be the 'fault' of the Australian government? A country can write whatever laws they want, but it's ultimately up to the country hosting those individuals to determine whether those laws mean anything. For a contemporary example the several Mueller indictments of Russian nationals are completely meaningless. They will never face a day in court because the Russian government does not tend to yield to US influence. There's 0 reason that e.g. the Australian government could not behave similarly, if they so wished. It comes with political and other risks, but so is the same with all decisions people make.

It should be obvious that that Constitution doesn't apply to people who aren't even in USA at all.

The Constitution applies to the government; it says what the government must, may, and mustn't. do. The government mustn't interfere with anyone's free speech.

There's a major nuance with our constitution that is extremely important to understand what it does, and does not, do. The nuance is that the constitution does not grant people freedom of speech, or even directly protect that right. You already inherently have freedom of speech by merit of existing. A government cannot grant you that right anymore than they can grant you the right to think. But what governments can do is to remove rights. The constitution restricts the power of our government to do that.

So the migration case you mention was a good example of this nuance. Congress can ban entry from whatever country they want. We could ban Canadians tomorrow if congress so chose. As for executive orders, the current precedent set is that the president is allowed to ban travel from any group so long as allowing it would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." So the nuance there is, is Trump banning travel from these nations because they are Muslim majority, or is he banning travel from these nations because travel from these Muslim majority nations is not in the interest of the United States?

He tasked a 50 day review ranking and classifying nations on their migration controls as well as making diplomatic efforts to mutually improve the standards of these nations. After the 50 days he prohibited entry from the countries which were deemed threats, most of which where Muslim majority. Lower courts tried to then claim he did this because these countries were Muslim, and attempted to use his past words against him. The Supreme Court ruled that his words did not override an otherwise valid justification and upheld his order. [1]

---

The big point here is that the constitution can render laws unlawful, but it itself does not directly provide any protections from otherwise legitimate laws. For maybe the clearest example consider Kleindienst vs Mandel [2]. In that case the US chose to prohibit entry to an individual based exclusively on speech that would be perfectly legal if it had been said within the US. This case made its way to the supreme court and they upheld that this action was not a violation of the first amendment. [2] And it should be clear why (though the fact this made it all the way to supreme court belies my notion of obviousness here) - his speech was used against him but within the confines of other valid laws.

[1] - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleindienst_v._Mandel

> That's like saying a foreign terrorist can't be charged for an act of terrorism because they're not a U.S. citizen.

One man's might-is-right flag-waving US exceptionalism is another man's terrorism.

Yeah, the flip side to this argument is pretty heinous: American war criminals can be prosecuted any time, any place they show up outside of Americas' borders.

Except, they can't, because the USA will protect them, even threatening to INVADE any country which attempts to reign their war criminals in.

Duplicity is the order of the day.

Look I'm not defending anything our country does and what they did to Manning was unconscionable. I think Manning acted in good faith, she may have crossed the line some but the punishment far exceeded what the situation merited. But I can't say the same about Assange. Now I'll admit the espionage charge is very "odd" for attempting to crack a password. But Assange did some stupid dangerous crap and got himself caught up. Simultaneously embarrassing and royally pissing off the CIA, NSA and the DOD is an epically dumb thing to do. I don't know what he was expecting to happen or what his game plan was. What the hell was he thinking? Manning got thrown under the bus, Assange stood in the middle of the road and dared it to run him over. I don't know how sorry I should feel for him at this point.

We live in a world where if you criticize the government enough to piss off the espionage department of your country, your only choice is to run to east if you live in the west and west if you live in the east.

If Assange is beholden to hold up US law, why would that only be applicable to some of them? And what about the issue of war crimes?

Everything is so relative man... /s

> Furthermore, because Assange is a foreign national, 1st Amendment protections do not apply in this situation.

Not remotely true, the first amendment protects anyone and everyone from government infringement. All of the bill of rights applies to anyone, citizens or not. Try reading them, they say what the government cannot do, nowhere will you find it saying but only to citizens.