Should Assange find himself shackled in the less than salubrious surrounds of the US carceral system, he will face one of the country’s most vicious statutes. The Espionage Act of 1917, also known as 18 USC 793, has worried the US legal profession for decades.
Unfortunately for those who still believe in the merits of international human rights laws, the Australian model, revised for European application, is bound to become ever more popular for populists and reactionaries.
The Manchurian candidate accusation can be said to be part of the toolkit of politicisation that has characterised the brief history of the Australian Commonwealth.
The prime minister may have stopped the revolving door of palace coups and knifed leaders, but he has also ensured the thriving of a mephitic culture in desperate need of an airing by an integrity commission.
The Australian Way meant ‘technology, not taxes’. The airy assumption here is based upon technology that has yet to bear fruit and upon a total absence of modelling and detail.
AUKUS is also a screeching message to powers in the region that the Anglophone bloc, with its vast historical baggage, intends to police the region against a country never mentioned in the joint statement but crystal clear to all present.
The Pegasus Project has shed more light on the attempt by various governments across the globe to challenge encryption as both principle and practice. They have done so by resorting to the amoral expertise provided by private enterprise.
Australia remains…one of the most secretive and, it should be said, punitive democracies when it comes to dealing with its public servants and whistleblowing.
In 2021, the Australian effort to pursue the matter risks going under or, at the very least, losing steam. For one, events on the ground in Afghanistan are moving quickly. The Taliban forces are resurgent and eagerly awaiting the finalised departure of foreign-led forces.
Achieving justice through international court processes tends to be celebrated by parties who either benefit directly from them or observe them with a dispassionate eye. For the rest, it’s politics.
