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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

The espionage act is a horrible piece of legislation. So challenge it. Go fight the charges. Take the spotlight and let everyone see how unjust the law is.

Fleeing from the law made Assange seem like a coward, which worked against his cause. There is no better way to seem guilty than to run from a legal process that most people feel is fair, even if you personally think otherwise.

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> Fleeing from the law made Assange seem like a coward, which worked against his cause. There is no better way to seem guilty than to run from a legal process that most people feel is fair, even if you personally think otherwise.

This comment comes up a lot in regards to Snowden too. I'm not a huge fan of Assange, but my feeling is that the people who whistleblow on corrupt governments at great personal risk don't owe you their martyrdom as well. It's very easy to claim that other people should be sacrificial lambs, but typically that argument falls apart once it gets personal -- if the government was attacking people in this forum right now, we wouldn't see so many people arguing that they had a duty to allow themselves to be used as an example of the potential harm.

I believe people like Snowden have the right to try and protect themselves from unjust systems, and fleeing from said systems is a particularly harmless measure with very few problematic knock-on effects.

Snowden hasn't, I don't believe, ever claimed that the law he broke was particularly unjust or that he'd be unfairly persecuted should he return to the US. He just felt that breaking the law was worth it, and importantly was and is comfortable living with the consequences.

Assange didn't do that. He just claims unfair persecution.

Snowden's been pretty explicit that he would be willing to return to the US if he was guaranteed a free trial, and that he believes the Espionage Act would deprive him of that trial.

> They want to use special procedures they want to be able to close the courtroom, they want the public not to be able to go, know what's going on. And, essentially, the most important fact to the government and this is the thing we have a point of contention on, is that they do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations.[0]

[0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-snowden-nsa-cbs-this-mor...

Ah, but that's the issue. As currently constructed, the espionage act cannot be challenged in court.

Assange would want to argue that he isn't a spy, but a whistleblower. The argument would be that he willingly broke a law in order to expose more illegal behavior by the government. In order to make that argument, he has to be allowed to talk about what the government does.

Under the espionage act, though, the government can say that the details of their activities are classified, and therefore are not admissable evidence in a public trial. Therefore, their guilt cannot be proven because any claim of illegal behavior could not be backed by evidence.

This is plainly false. The judge is the one who decides if the actions of the government bare relevant. If the judge believes they are, they will be admitted, and parts of the trial will be closed, but other parts will remain open.

I would urge you to do research to confirm your assertion here. What I described is not a fringe view, it's literally a summary of the Criticism section in the Wikipedia entry for the law in question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917#Criticis...

And the response is simple and straightforward: civil disobedience doesn't result in an immunity to consequences.

No one is saying that civil disobedience should be consequence-less. We’re arguing over the legality of the laws one would be breaking and whether they’re just.

I believe that it is better to be free and seem like a coward than be punished via a process which I believe is unfair and spend the rest of my life in jail or worse.

He is not a US citizen. Fighting US laws is neither his right nor obligation.

> So challenge it. Go fight the charges. Take the spotlight and let everyone see how unjust the law is.

Easy to nominate someone else for martyrdom.

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