Assange, the MSM, the Constitution and more

First, a British newspaper knows the Constitution of the United States better than many top-level American journalists, or politicians -- both of whom, in incestuous embrace, salivate over the possibility of us "getting" WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange.

Just one problem — any crimes allegedly committed by Assange are extraterritorial of the United States, therefore, as the Guardian notes, it would be unconstitutional to prosecute him.

It's well established that the due process clause places limits on such sweeping assertions of power. For example, when foreign monopolies manipulate prices overseas, it's not enough to show that they have hurt American consumers. Courts insist on evidence that they had fair notice that American anti-trust laws would govern their activity.

Of course, with U.S. courts showing a fellatio-level degree of subservience to "executive authority," especially as part of the hyperinflationary "War on Terror," the theoretical is likely to have little effect on the actual.

Next, the latest WikiLeaks revelations roundup:

The U.S. has been even more active in bolstering authoritarian governments in Muslim-majority nations than previously revealed.

Two problems with this.

The first:

"This kind of feeds the al Qaida narrative, that we're doing it everywhere," said Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.

And the second:

Peter Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington, said(this type and degree of support) illustrates the dangers of U.S. forces relying on local allies who have other objectives.
"There are no guarantees that our ally might not also use the tools against another of their enemies — indeed, they would be almost remiss not to," Singer said. "The end result is that you may get the action you may have wanted, but you also incur all sorts of unexpected side effects, including in these cases being drawn into local disputes that aren't fully in our strategic interests."

AND, **big kudo** to McClatchy in this story for identifying the Brookings Institution as "center-left." (It's not that liberal.) Here's its WikiLeaks coverage webpage. Since it's better than general than most MSM newspaper companies on challenging the conventional Beltway wisdom, a good one to bookmark. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/wikileaks/

It gets worse ...

We had an Afghan drug lord on the CIA *and* DEA payroll.

If Amazon caved to the U.S. government (which it did, despite its denial), would it cave to China? Not sell certain books there? What does this say for cloud computing in the future? More questions the Guardian asks that U.S. media largely aren't.

Tying Pfc. Manning to Assange might be difficult. Plus, are all the cables from Manning anyway? http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/10/105110/wikileaks-tying-assange-to-manning.html

Additional thoughts from Australia's The Age on Anna Ardin and the allegations against Assange.

And from Feministing.com founder Jessica Valenti, who isn't as strident on this issue and gender feminism as a certain Stephanie Zvan.