[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11...

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tec...

[3] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40467957/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in...

[4] http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-b...

Citizens too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Derwish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Aulaqi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul-Rahman_al-Awlaki (16 y.o. minor US citizen)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_Khan

All grand jury proceedings are secret. This is a normal part of the US legal system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_Stat...

I am not arguing with your statement (you have said nothing wrong) but I'd like to head off the potential "Obama/Democrats is/are the problem!" rants.

The only major difference is that Obama always really wanted to catch Bin Laden and Bush -- openly -- didn't care. Now that that's over, he seems to want to run for Bush's fourth term.

Obama tried to close guantanamo for years (see politifact) before giving up. He tried to end the trickle-down economics that Bush had (such as ending tax cuts for the rich) but conceded to the opposition somewhere around the US debt ceiling crisis.

His administration's technology initiatives are far ahead of Bush's (witness http://data.gov for instance, and requirement for all agencies to have an API).

His social programs are better thought out and actually save us money. Compare for example Bush's Medicare act in 2003 vs the CBO's assessment of Obama's Affordable Care Act which actually will save a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Or compare Bush's "gotta go cya later" bailout to the TARP that happened under Obama. His administration even set up http://recovery.gov to "track the money". Or compare the success that they had in bailing out the automakers. I would say that this administration is much more conscientious than the one with Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney and co.

Where Bush basically attacked Iraq with no emergency or multinational support ("coalition of the willing" was a sham), US involvement in Libya under Obama is closer to a Just War in that there is an emergency (dictator bombing his citizens), and it was also merely part of a multinational response, including a UN resolution, to a situation decried by human rights groups.

Where I agree with you is Obama's cavalier attitude toward executive privilege and rights granted by the NDAA. This represents an erosion of CIVIL liberties and security in America, which I am not happy about.

As of the bill's passage into law in 2010, CBO estimated the legislation would reduce the deficit by $143 billion[185] over the first decade, but half of that was due to expected premiums for the C.L.A.S.S. Act, which has since been abandoned.[186] Although the CBO generally does not provide cost estimates beyond the 10-year budget projection period (because of the great degree of uncertainty involved in the data) it decided to do so in this case at the request of lawmakers, and estimated a second decade deficit reduction of $1.2 trillion.[180][187] ...

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab...

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/

Still, I want to say 3 things:

1) After getting into office, he actually addressed the fiscal and economic crisis that was developing, and we can definitely say that today the charts are a little higher than in 2008. That took some re-prioritizing.

2) All politicians promise something. Just hear Romney's promises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnaYOv0DZY ... so believing everyone's promises is silly. For me it's more about how competent the guy is to actually achieve/maintain the stuff I think we need as a country. And even so, I don't think the president can do that much these days. You should worry about the Senate, they have the lowest approval rating ever I think.

3) He has made some major reforms, the medical reform is a big one, perhaps one day he may tackle immigration reform. Also the JOBS act is bringing about some much-needed financial reform, but I can't give all the credit to Obama on this one. Actually here is what I think about the direction this country is headed: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=108

Execution without judicial review.

Its actions have shown in the last 10+ years that is not the case. It has detained, tortured and killed people extra-judicially. Even its own citizens. Making any appeals to the the quality of it judicial process is a bit silly at the moment.

So in other words it might not make sense to be afraid of that particular threat "charge of espionage" but it is not unreasonable for him to fear in general.

Remember the case how that Russian ex-KGB agent was poisoned with Polonium? There is little doubt it was the Russians doing it and they also wanted to make sure there would be little doubt (except hard evidence) that they did, so that everyone learns to fear opposing or criticizing them in the future.

It seems to me Assange and Manning are prime candidates for being turned into example for all to see.

   There is little doubt it was the Russians

The most obvious suspect is oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a London refugee from Russia, accused of embezzlement at home, who is waging a fierce propaganda war with the current Russian government.

http://www.rt.com/news/berezovsky-litvinenko-murder-allegati...

The response of the grandparent was 'no' because US legal system can't technically touch him. My response to that was that I am not exactly sure if the world should trust US in light of its actions in the last 10 years.

You can't conduct an experiment to figure things out, if you can't then come back and conduct more experiment because the first one killed you.

Julius and Ethel are the young couple who were executed for espionage in 1953. This was at the height of McCarthyism. Most of us agree McCarthy was a little, ahem, extreme. It's an interesting story and younger readers should check it out. Was Ethel Rosenberg really a spy? What did she do? The Wikipedia page has some links to further reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Rosenberg

Reading over the BBC's timeline of the Assange case really leaves one in a state of bewilderment. The "rape" story was shared with between two women and then with a journalist? The allegations were dropped. Then reinstated? He's being extradicted for some allegations? Allegations, not charges. And those have nothing to do with leaking documents and espionage? WTF?

Are all the newspapers innocent in this? They spread the cables far and wide. It took more than just a disillusioned private and some nerds sniffing Tor exit nodes. The papers are still attracting readers and advertising dollars using this whole incident as a catapult.

The whole thing is really bizarre if you come at it objectively.

Perhaps if there were Ecuadorian charges against Assange to which he could plead guilty and thus be a fugitive from international law, which would obviously require he be sent to Ecuador to serve time before going to Sweden for questioning.

I wonder how Britain would feel about it's international obligations under those circumstances.

Let's face it if Assange does go to Ecuador then the ambassador is going with him.