That's something that I don't entirely understand. There is the consistent argument that the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular, doesn't make any guarantee toward non-US persons. Except, I don't think that's actually the case. If I look at the text of the first amendment, for example:

> 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.

This doesn't say anything about whose freedom of speech, only that Congress may not abridge it. The existence of the freedom of speech is taken as a given, regardless of whose speech it is. The restriction is on Congress to not be able to abridge that freedom of speech, no matter who holds it.

> That's something that I don't entirely understand. There is the consistent argument that the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular, doesn't make any guarantee toward non-US persons. Except, I don't think that's actually the case.

Isn't it because the preamble begins with `We the people of the united states [..]` ?

> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The constitution has nothing to do with citizens or non citizens. It's all about the instructions of how a government works, and what limits the government has.

I don't know what to make of that statement. The constitution has plenty of articles dealing with citizen's rights. What am I missing ?

There's stuff about voting specifics I think, what specifically are you thinking of?

Article 4, section 2 `The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.` but that is not what's important: 1. Why do you say the constitution has nothing to do with citizens or non-citizens when some articles are about them and their rights ? 2. Why do you disagree that the preamble establishes that the document is from and about the people of the united states (and doesn't apply to non-US people/citizens) ?

Becuase much of the document is there to limit the powers of the government. It doesn't grant rights to people, it acknowleges that people have those rights whether the constitution exists or not, and then proceeds to grant rights to the government

The preamble is who authored the constitution

Article 1 is all about how congress works

Article 2 about the president

Aritcle 3 about the courts

Article 4 about the states

Article 5 about the constitution

Article 6 about which laws are important

The Bill of rights further limits the power of government

Nothing specifically is about the people. The clause you state limits the powers of the state to take rights away from people.

The Constitution does not grant rights to people - because people (all people, globally) have all the rights by default. It does grant rights to government to do certain things, and it specifically limits the power of government to take away rights from people.

It is by no means settled that "the people of the United States" is explicitly and specifically citizenry and not aliens currently in the country for clauses not so specifying "citizens".

Ah, I understand now. Thanks. A quick Google search returns accounts of many debates about it (I should have mentioned I am not a US citizen, nor am I living in the US. I usually do, my bad).

No problem. Plenty of Americans don't know this, and there's a sizable proportion that wants you to think it's so settled.

Thanks.

It has something to do with citizens. For example firearm ownership and voting are restricted to citizens, not just people-who-happen-to-be-here.

> It has something to do with citizens. For example firearm ownership and voting are restricted to citizens, not just people-who-happen-to-be-here.

All the constitution has to say on firearm ownership is

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

No mention of citizens.

The constitution does mention citizens

1) Limiting people from congress/senate/president unless they have been citizens for various lengths of time

2) The supreme court applies

3) States can't discriminate between people from one state or another

well at the time that was written only certain people were actually allowed to sit in government or vote, so it would seem those are the people who should have the rights outlined by the constitution, but it seems that the constitution at its formation did allow freedom of religion for women, who at the time were not allowed to vote. So it seems that there might be some leeway.

There was at one time the argument that the bill of rights codified some of the natural rights that were inherent in humans, to protect against government encroachment, as per The Rights of Man theory of natural rights https://www.ushistory.org/paine/rights/c2-04.htm but this is no longer the popular interpretation, generally theories that prevent power from being asserted will lose popularity, at least among the powerful.

The first sentence in the preamble of the Constitution is “We the People of the United States.” The “people” I believe is referring to the ones mentioned here.

> abridging the freedom [...]; or the right of the people

That pretty clearly attaches "the people" as a qualifier only on the right to assemble and petition the government for redress, and not on the freedom of speech or the press. I'm not sure how you purport to parse that as "abridging the freedom of speech of the people", even if we do grant that "the people" refers only to citizens, rather than all subjects.

I agree there. There have also been some arguments about whether "people" without any qualifier should refer to "people of the several States" because that is the wording used elsewhere, or whether the absence of the qualifier is intentional and significant, in which case "people" should be interpreted more broadly.

> There have also been some arguments about whether "people" without any qualifier should refer

Yes, quite; there's room for reasonable disagreement about whether the first amendment protects the rights of assembly and petition only for citizens, for any subjects, or for anyone generally. But the protections for speech and the press (ie the ones actually relevant to Assange) have no such qualification. If they were prosecuting him for, say, standing in front of a government building yelling "Down with the NSA!", the fact that he's not a citizen would arguably be in any way relevant.

Yet non-Americans do seem to enjoy being prosecuted for breaking USA laws. Looks like the USA has unilaterally decided that it is now the One World Government we've all been dying for. We should also prosecute China for breaking our federal minimum wage laws.

Extradition treaties are voluntarily agreed to by both countries. If you are British or American and don’t like the consequences of this treaty, I encourage you to contact relevant politicians and tell them to renegotiate the treaty.

I believe the right treaty is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_tr...

Reminds me of the recent U.S. diplomat’s wife that got away with murder in Britain and several other such cases(U.S murderers not being prosecuted). The extradation treaties do not work the way you think they do. They big guy always has the last say regardless of what the treaty says.

I’d argue that’s continued failure of the extradition treaty, and part of why it’s hard to craft them.

You can’t make it too easy to extradite, but you also don’t want it to be too hard.

I’m not sure what the right carve out would be to avoid extradition of journalists for comparatively trivial charges. A full blown journalistic exception seems too far, but I don’t know what the right line is instead.

>> I’d argue that’s continued failure of the extradition treaty, and part of why it’s hard to craft them.

Not really. If it were the other way around the murderer would have been in police custody regardless of its status(i.e the wife of a diplomat). It just that the small guy cherises the relationship with the big guy too much to upset it.

Agreed, the diplomatic angle is why it’s a total mess. I’m kind of surprised the US did not have her tried for manslaughter.

The US-UK extradition treaty doesn't need to be renegotiated. It just needs to be enforced. The treaty makes it very clear that Assange cannot be extradited:

> extradition shall not be granted if the competent authority of the Requested State determines that the request was politically motivated.

The only question is whether the UK government will breach the treaty in order to please its American allies.

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/extradition-treat...

> non-US persons don’t enjoy any of the rights of the US constitution

This is a very common misconception. In most cases, the Bill of Rights protects any person anywhere from the US government.

There's no mention of citizenship in the Bill of Rights, and the 1st Amendment forbids the federal government from "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." There's no geographic or citizenship qualification.

Where in the Constitution does it state that its language should be read as inclusive of non-US persons unless explicitly stated otherwise?

The part where it uses the word "person" without a qualifier such as "who is a american citizen"?

Where in the Constitution does it state that its language should be read as exclusive of non-US persons unless explicitly stated otherwise?

It doesn't specify either way, that's the problem. It's not a modern legal document with precise terms defined, it's written in sometimes intentionally vague 18th century prose, so either interpretation is equally valid as far as the text alone is concerned.

If it says "citizen" in one place, and "person" in another where it could as easily have said "citizen", elementary logic dictates that "person" does not imply "citizen". Saying otherwise is a brazen attempt to muddy clear water.

The framers were not stupid. They knew what they were writing. If they had meant "citizen", they knew how to write it.

"The framers weren't stupid lol" isn't a compelling argument.

Show me documentary evidence or legal precedent from the time demonstrating that intent on the part of the framers, or else you're just projecting.

After all, apparently everyone was wrong about what "well regulated militia" actually meant until 2008. So it must not all be as crystal clear and elementary as you claim.

Muddying the water has been a successful strategy for lawyers for millennia. That does not make it less reprehensible to do, nor justify being fooled by it.

There were a lot of lawyers among the framers. They didn't choose the wording of something as important as the First Amendment randomly.

The Constitution binds the US government in all cases. It does not cease to apply when the US government deals with foreigners. If the Constitution places an unqualified restriction on the US government, that restriction applies in all circumstances. The free speech clause does not have any qualification about only applying inside the borders of the US or to citizens.

It would be absurd for the US government to claim that Assange is bound by US law, and can therefore be charged under US statutes, but that the Constitution does not apply to him.