Sam Fields: Paranoia Justified In Wikileaks Case
BY SAM FIELDS
Every day, ships and planes travel from London to Stockholm. But the reverse must not be so.
That is the only conclusion one can draw from the fight to extradite Australian Julian Assange from London to Stockholm so the police can “talk” to him about his involvement in two sexual battery allegations.
Is it a lack of planes and ships that keeps the Swedish authorities from going to London?
Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, who was in London when our government tried and failed to extradite him to the U.S. for his involvement in publishing a series of embarrassing e-mails stolen from the Pentagon.
They do not involve atomic secrets or troops movements. They do include candid remarks by our diplomats that ordinarily are not made public for decades…long after everyone is dead. He has also published embarrassing files from Syria, Columbia and dozens of other countries and powerful corporations.
In short, he has made a lot of powerful enemies. I wouldn’t want to underwrite a life insurance policy on him. You can bet you last nickel that his obituary will include the phrase “suspicious circumstances”.
Assange knows this better than anyone. It’ s why he is holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has been given asylum. He fled to their embassy when the same British courts that denied the U.S. request upheld the Swedish request.
He is convinced that Sweden is in cahoots with Washington and that once he arrives in Stockholm he will be extradited to the U.S.
Is it impossible to believe that the CIA hired some Swedish strumpets to file phony-baloney police complaints?
The timing of the Swedish request came on the heels of the British Courts denying the U.S. request.
Coincidence? I think not.
Assange has not been charged with anything in Sweden. There is no arrest warrant. They just want to “talk” to him and for some strange reason they can only to do it in Sweden.
What makes this more suspicious is that Swedes, like all Westerners, have a right against self-incrimination just like our Fifth Amendment. It’s just hard to believe that Sweden has gone through this whole brouhaha so they can drag him back to Stockholm only to have him say: “I don’t want to talk to you.”
All they have to do is contact Assange or his lawyer who will politely tell them: “Thanks, but no thanks…either put out an arrest warrant or leave him alone.”
Of course it may be that there are no communications lines between Sweden and the UK. No phones, Internet, telegraph, mail, etc.
Why?
Well, like the Swedes, as long as we are making up stories try these two on for size:
- Every single member of Swedish law enforcement gets airsick and seasick.
- The Swedish government has cut off all transportation and communications lines with the UK because they recently learned that back in the 70’s Scottish rocker Rod Stewart had an unseemly public breakup with beloved Swedish actress Britt Ekland.
Why are these explanations any less absurd than Assange can only be interviewed in Stockholm?
Assange is the paradigm of: “Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean you don’t have enemies.”
In this case Assange’s paranoia justifies believing that a trip to Sweden will only be a stopover on the way to the U.S. with a side trip to Guantanamo.
August 18th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
We are so amused
August 18th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
No one better than Sam to write about paranoia…
August 18th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Fields is a strange lawyer. In this article he suggests that Assange is right to defy the British Supreme Court, which ordered him to be extradited to Sweden.
Assange cares about nobody but himself. In today’s newspaper it says that he cost his supporters $375,000 in bail when he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy. The allegations against him have done more damage to Wikileaks than any Jason Bourne hatched from Fields’ paranoia could ever do.
August 18th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
The UK is spending at least 50,000 pounds ($78,500) PER DAY in police costs to surround the Ecuador embassy, according to the London newspaper Daily Mail. Does anyone really believe that this enormous expense, plus the many other costs of an international extradition, is justified by the alleged offense of possibly having had consensual sex without a condom?
Keep in mind that in London, only 12% of reported rapes result in a conviction and sentence. And according to the London newspaper The Independent, more than 80% of rapes there are not even reported to police. In fact, London’s Daily Mail newspaper reported on 7/23/12 that Britain’s chief prosecutor, Keir Starmer, states that “Nine in 10 rapes and other sexual assaults go unreported to police because women lack confidence in the criminal justice system”.
One might think that the $78,500 per day in police costs might be better spent looking after all the multitudes of raped women in the UK than on 24-hour guards surrounding a person who allegedly had consensual sex in Sweden without a condom.
The UK’s threat to force its way into the Ecuadorian embassy is even more shocking – that is unheard of. Embassies are considered inviolable. US News & World Report describes “the case of Roman Catholic Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, who sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in 1956 and remained there for 15 years.” BBC News reports on “Fang Lizhi, a Chinese astrophysicist and government critic, who took refuge in the US embassy in Beijing in 1989, just as the authorities were launching their crackdown on the Tiananmen protests. He stayed over a year” and that “‘Embassies are privileged areas. The local authorities have no rights to enter,’ says Colin Warbrick, a specialist in international law and honorary professor at Birmingham University.” Why would the UK literally threaten to overturn the rule of inviolability, a custom that has been in place for centuries and is well-established in international law as part of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, supposedly because some guy may have had consensual sex twice without a condom in some other country?
Assange and Ecuador are right. Assange is indeed being politically persecuted. Granting asylum is exactly the internationally accepted legal response to cases of political persecution.
@ Las Olas Lawyer – Assange can very easily make the $375,000 back and repay his supporters, provided that he isn’t first sent to Guantanamo Bay via Stockholm.
August 19th, 2012 at 9:47 am
Dear Las Olas Lawyer,
When a law or the Courts are unjust we have a higher duty to oppose them and accept the consequences.
I suggest you spend some time reading Thoreau (On Civil Disobedience) or Martin Luther King Jr. (Letters From a Birmingham Jail).
If these do not convince you of your narrow view of the law then it is correct for our readers to assume that you have happily prosecuted Blacks for violating Jim Crow Laws and Jews for violating The Nuremberg Laws.
Would you have been a Loyalist during the Revolution? A slave trader before the 13th Amendment?
When your conscience tells you that the law is wrong or being perverted you cannot hide behind legal texts.
When I was handed my Bar Card I do not remember anyone telling me to hand in my conscience. Apparently you do…and you did!
August 19th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Assange attacks the United States and is defended here. Please note that he only attacks this country and not Russia, China, North Korea or Iran. That’s because he is a dedicated enemy of the US. We must fight enemies. What would you sit still for next? Assange publishing the codes for our missile defense on the Internet?
He is now caught in the British and Swedish (no friends of the US) court system. We should watch and then pounce. Our enemies should know there are consequences.
August 19th, 2012 at 11:38 am
The sexual assault charges in Sweden are bogus. They are so liberal there that it is accepted for a woman to engage in consensual sex and a day (or a week) later change her mind and call it rape. Assange is a major league POS but I doubt the merit of these assault allegations.
Common Sense Patriot is right when he points out that Assange does not reveal any secrets from left leaning dictatorships. That is for two reasons. First is that he is a leftist and would not want to cause any problems for his fellow travelers. Second, he realizes that after doing that to China, Russia et al, he would be quickly murdered or “disappeared”.
So what does that mean for the US? Is our government behind the effort to get Assange out of the Ecuadoran embassy? Should we allow Assange and his cohorts to leak or sell our secret information? No, of course not. Assange is playing a dangerous game and he thinks he can place himself above that danger. Sorry, our secrets are a matter of life and death, especially to our intelligence operators and their assets.
As a side note, it is interesting that Sam Fields condemns actions that he says our country is taking behind the scenes. He does not know what he is talking about and is basically making up the whole thing. Even if our country is performing secret machinations, who is in charge of that? How can Sam Fields divorce the actions of our government from the Fearless Leader of our government? Why doesn’t Sam Fields protest our Wise King Barack for this?
August 19th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Dear Sam:
Speculation that the Swedes will extradite Assange to the U.S. cannot justify a U.K. refusal to honor a bona fide Swedish warrant for alleged rape. (There IS a Swedish warrant warrant. That’s the salient point.) Further, the suggestion that Sweden, a fiercely independent and historically neutral country, would kowtow to U.S. pressure to extradite is a stretch. (Particulary after the U.K., our most steadfast ally since WWII, has refused the U.S. extradition request.)
Sweden would be forever tarred as a running-dog lackey of the U.S. if they bowed to U.S. pressure. The Swedes simply won’t let it happen.
I don’t know the facts of the Swedish rape allegations. (But, presumably Rafael Correa does. I can’t imagine he would place the honor of the Ecuadorian people at stake unless his investigative staff had thorougly investigated the charges and evidence and found them lacking) However, civilized nations cannot endure and prosper unless violent crimes (and particulary crimes against women) are taken seriously. This mandates clear and just observance of criminal extradition requests. You can argue that Britain, Sweden and Interpol are rogue players, beholden to the U.S. intelligence agencies, but, c’mon. That’s Chavista claptrap.
Joran Van der Sloot comes to mind. He probably wished he had been associated with Wikileaks. If he had, he’d be dining with the Peruvian ambassador in the Ecuadorian embassy right now. Instead, he’s sitting in a peruvian prison cell.
Jerry W.
August 19th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Wikileaks has released leaked documents on:
* Syria – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012.
* Colombia – documents proving extra-judicial killings and murder of suspected guerrillas
and many other countries. Their Country Index is here:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries
The Wikileaks China page is here:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:China
The Wikileaks Russia page is here:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia
Wikileaks North Korea page here:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:North_Korea
The Wikileaks Iran page is here:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Iran
August 19th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
So apparently this isn’t about Assange’s issue with Sweden?
Your facts about Wikileaks are, at best, skewed. Intel has been released about Nigeria, Peru, Germany, and lots others.
Quite obviously that’s not on your radar, since it’s not been reported by Fox News.
August 19th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Note also that Assange attacked Russia this morning on live TV, criticizing the two-year sentence given to three young women (of the punk band “Pussy Riot”) who posted an anti-Putin music video on YouTube.
August 19th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Fields said “When a law or the Courts are unjust we have a higher duty to oppose them and accept the consequences”
Thoreau and Martin Luther King are not lawyers.
Show me where in the Bar oath it allows you to defy a judge. Also, did you swear to God when you became a member of the Bar like the hypocrite you are
The general principles which should ever control the lawyer in the practice of the legal profession are clearly set forth in the following oath of admission to the Bar, which all lawyers are sworn on admission to obey and for the willful violation to which disbarment may be had.
“I do solemnly swear: I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Florida;
I will maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers;
I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceedings which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land;
I will employ for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor,
and will never seek to mislead the judge or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law;
I will maintain the confidence and preserve inviolate the secrets of my clients, and will accept no compensation in connection with their business except from them or with their knowledge and approval; I will abstain from all offensive personality and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which I am charged;
I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, or delay anyone’s cause for lucre or malice.
So help me God.”
August 19th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Ahhh…
Yet another reason why I’d never want to be a lawyer.
Swearing to things that don’t exist — God, Santa Claus, and free Blow Jobs.
August 19th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Dear Jerry,
I am disappointed in your comments.
Unlike others, who claim to be lawyers but are so afraid of me they will not sign their name, (maybe they are not lawyers) I expect better out of you.
1. Lying about putting a raincoat on Mr. Winky is not even a crime in the U.S. unless it is done to intentionally infect someone with a disease.
2. Note capital letters: THEY HAVE NOT CHARGED HIM WITH A CRIME!!!!!!
3. Where are your American due process values? In my country you cannot force a suspect or defendant (Assange is still only a suspect) to meet with, much less talk to the police or prosecutors, without a subpoena (Or a “Queen For a Day Letter” in the federal system) that confers “use immunity”.
4. Are there legal systems that require the accused to talk? Sure. I believe Sharia law is one. Instead of putting in for a judgeship you might want to think about Ayatollah.
The gravamen of this whole thing is whether Assange committed a crime in the U.S. Unless he assisted Bradley Manning is getting the documents he committed no crime. Publishing those documents is rightly protected by the First Amendment. (Think Pentagon Papers) He is rightly concerned that the U.S. will rig a trial against him.
The bottom line is this:
There is every reason to believe that government officials home and abroad are abusing/breaking the law to screw Assange because he exposed their dirty little secrets. In the Olmstead case Justice Brandeis said it best when he warned that the worst of all is when the government becomes the lawbreaker because is justifies everyone to become a law unto himself.
This episode will not be the proudest moment in the Obama Administration. And the Republicans that are cheering on this abomination (that’s you Jerry) will have forfeited their right to ever claim they are against “Big Government”.
August 19th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
@Fields is Correct, pretty much everything on Russia and China that is on your wikileaks links are from western news sources. Not secret internal documents. A lot of the Chinese stuff is in Mandarin, can you read that?
@Another Lawyer, ”I will abstain from all offensive personality and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness,” Looks like Sam Fields falls down on that “offensive personality” stuff.
August 20th, 2012 at 2:15 am
@Sham, Wikileaks has web pages up targeting ALL of the countries you listed earlier AND is soliciting leaks regarding ALL of them. The Wikileaks site does not find its own documents. It simply provides a means by which others can submit documents to Wikileaks. Thus, Wikileaks stands ready to do its part with respect to Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Should you happen to know anyone who is in possession of interesting documents on any of these countries who would like to leak those documents, please direct them to the Wikileaks site and recommend that they use it for that purpose.
Also, Google Translate understands Mandarin as well as many other languages. Perhaps you should take Internet 101 and learn how to use it! http://translate.google.com/
August 20th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
It is no wonder that Fields is defending Assange since he is a dedicated anti-Semite.
When Britain’s Private Eye magazine published a story exposing one of Wikileaks representatives as a notorious Holocaust denier, Assange called the editor and accused him of being part of a Jewish cabal trying to bring the website down.
On his television show on the Kremlin’s Russian Today, his first guest was Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader.
One more point about Field’s new hero. He was questsioned in Sweden about the allegations but when they requested to see him again, he fled to Britain.
August 21st, 2012 at 6:18 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-free-speech.html
WikiLeaks and Free Speech
[…] Since WikiLeaks’ founding, it has revealed the “Collateral Murder” footage that shows the seemingly indiscriminate killing of Baghdad civilians by a United States Apache attack helicopter; further fine-grained detail about the true face of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; United States collusion with Yemen’s dictatorship to conceal our responsibility for bombing strikes there; the Obama administration’s pressure on other nations not to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture; and much more.
[…] it is the British and Swedish governments that stand in the way of an investigation, not Mr. Assange.
Swedish authorities have traveled to other countries to conduct interrogations when needed, and the WikiLeaks founder has made clear his willingness to be questioned in London. Moreover, the Ecuadorean government made a direct offer to Sweden to allow Mr. Assange to be interviewed within Ecuador’s embassy. In both instances, Sweden refused.
Mr. Assange has also committed to traveling to Sweden immediately if the Swedish government pledges that it will not extradite him to the United States. Swedish officials have shown no interest in exploring this proposal, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recently told a legal adviser to Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks unequivocally that Sweden would not make such a pledge. The British government would also have the right under the relevant treaty to prevent Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States from Sweden, and has also refused to pledge that it would use this power. Ecuador’s attempts to facilitate that arrangement with both governments were rejected.
Taken together, the British and Swedish governments’ actions suggest to us that their real agenda is to get Mr. Assange to Sweden. Because of treaty and other considerations, he probably could be more easily extradited from there to the United States to face charges. Mr. Assange has every reason to fear such an outcome.The Justice Department recently confirmed that it was continuing to investigate WikiLeaks, and just-disclosed Australian government documents from this past February state that “the U.S. investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr. Assange has been ongoing for more than a year.” WikiLeaks itself has published e-mails from Stratfor, a private intelligence corporation, which state that a grand jury has already returned a sealed indictment of Mr. Assange. And history indicates Sweden would buckle to any pressure from the United States to hand over Mr. Assange. In 2001 the Swedish government delivered two Egyptians seeking asylum to the C.I.A., which rendered them to the Mubarak regime, which tortured them.
If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws. The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not. […]
August 23rd, 2012 at 5:04 pm
As someone who has spent some time in England with both barristers and socilators and politicians and has read as much legal history as anyone and knows Swedish history and politics, but also the left wing Anti-American and frankly pseudo-Communism of the present gang in Ecuador, it is obvious, a suspected rapist is being protected by fellow anti-Semitic, anti-American, leftist hooligans. Fields is full of what we flush down the toilet and his “theories” about Swedish and American “working together” are factually baseless – as is almost all of his “assumptions”.
August 25th, 2012 at 9:47 am
Dear Chud
Are yu really a Count?????