> So, in the initial phase, he gets to decide that charges against him are bogus, and that he doesn't need to submit?
Are you supposed to let your accuser have 100% say in whether you are guilty, even if you believe the system is rigged against you and you are acting in good faith?
Such an attitude is subservient and enables totalitarian governments to operate under the guise of justice.
You have to understand that nothing gives any body of government legitimacy just because other governments recognize it. The only thing that gives your government power is your permission as a citizen. My country was founded on this sentiment.
When Martin Luther King said:[0]
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law,"
he was not thinking of whistleblowers and the fact that their greatest impact on society comes from maintaining their sovereignty in spite of globally coordinated efforts to censor and imprison them.
Assange was operating in good faith that his life's work might end the moment he stepped foot back in Sweden. He chose not to recognize the authority of a State he was actively politically engaged with. Countries do this every day.
Just because he doesn't have an army behind him to legitimize his claim to sovereignty, doesn't mean he doesn't have the right to that claim and the right to achieve his sovereignty by any means that can be ethically justified.
To claim that he does not get the right to decide for himself, as all men do, whether to recognize what a particular group of people with guns and land command of him, is to claim that he is not human, because that is a natural human right.
I have personally been the victim of an illegal charge despite overwhelming evidence in my favor, and received the maximum possible fines and jail sentence. Going to jail made sense because I wanted to just get my life back on track after my government destroyed it, as soon as possible. But it was not the morally responsible thing to do. I didn't even commit the crime I was convicted for. The morally responsible thing to do would have been to not submit myself to the illegitimate city government which prosecuted me.
> I'd love to know what civil freedoms of yours you believe are going to be impinged by virtue of this post.
Any number of things.
My country asks for social media accounts when applying for a passport, sure it's optional now, but give it time.
Automation and machine analysis will ensure my Hacker News account factors into my Social Credit score.
If you get out from under your rock you would see similar things happening in many countries across the globe.
I think this description is a little too martyring for my liking.
I'd love to know what civil freedoms of yours you believe are going to be impinged by virtue of this post.