Have you ever said anything disparaging about the CCP or its leadership in an online forum? If so: congratulations! You've committed a crime directly equivalent to what Assange did.

You've just argued yourself into saying that it is proper, good, and right for China to extradite you. If not you personally, then people you know who did say negative things about the CCP. Or took Muhammad's name in vain. Or, or, or...

We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

> So you're saying Chinese law applies to you when you're a US citizen in the US?

Sometimes

> We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

No, that's why countries have extradition and other treaties that detail what foreign crimes they will recognize and provide reciprocity for with enforcement. Usually the answer is "Things that are also crimes in our country". Hacking is a crime in both countries, so Australian laws could be enforced on a US citizen through the mechanisms established by those treaties. Disparaging the CCP is explicitly protected in the US, so it wouldn't - so long as the US citizen never visits China.

Before you answer, consider that his crime is the rough equivalent of you walking past a "secure government facility" with one of those number-pad locks on the door, trying a few combinations, and then giving up.

Also, before talking about "attempted crimes are still crimes" or whatever, please do a rough Fermi estimate of how many teenage children do that much or worse on a daily basis, attempting to hack US systems from either abroad or on US soil.

Should the government of the United States spend tens of millions of dollars prosecuting every such incident? Extradite every script kiddie and drag them in front a grand jury? Are you saying that there's "rules" here that are being meticulously followed by all parties?

To most normal people, this looks like abuse of power. Assange made powerful people look bad and they retaliated with all of the tools at their disposal.

That anyone here can justify this kind of behaviour is a sign that you want an emperor, not a president. A king, not an elected official. You want monarchy, with those in power able to execute a peasant for any infraction against their betters.

If I launched a ransomware attack against a Chinese company, smuggled drugs into China via the Post, etc then I wouldn't be surprised when China charged me for my crimes. That is how the world works! There are plenty of laws where you don't need to be physically inside a country to be at risk of indictment (or equivalent).

>We can't be subject to every country's laws, irrespective of citizenship or location.

It would be silly for a country to try and enforce every law they have on others abroad. That doesn't mean countries can't enforce certain laws on people who are abroad. I gave you 4 examples of laws that countries commonly enforce on people abroad and for good reason.

>You've just argued yourself into saying that it is proper, good, and right for China to extradite you. If not you personally, then people you know who did say negative things about the CCP. Or took Muhammad's name in vain. Or, or, or..

No I didn't. China trying to extradite someone for criticizing them isn't the same as the US trying to extradite a Russian hacker who is behind a ransomware attack or a South American drug kingpin. Assange was a direct co-conspirator in accessing and stealing classified documents. Trying to pretend like that is on the same level as criticizing the CCP or some warlord is absurd. It is so absurd it is hard to tell if you are even being serious or just trolling.

What exactly was this guy doing? Was he accessing secrets to sell them to north korea or was he exposing crimes against humanity, conspiracies against the public interest, and violations of international law?

I wonder something. Let’s say the mafia spent on Hollywood and mainstream news enough to develop mainstream culture to the point where the mafia is legitimized in the eyes of enough of the public. You would defend mob punishment of someone who steals documents from them wouldn’t you?

I wonder what is it that makes you ready to side with authority and blame the (potential) victim? Do you always side with authority because it’s more comfortable to pretend they are noble than to admit to yourself that you ignore the tyranny of an evil, abusive authority? Do you blame the Gazans for Israel dropping bombs on their apartment buildings or burning their children alive in the refugee tent camps (that Israel declared as safe) because nearly two decades ago Hamas won the election in Gaza? Do you blame the millions Vietnamese for getting agent orange dropped on them because they dared to tolerate deviations from what the Americans desired in terms of Vietnamese economic/civic management?

It’s an interesting thing to see people jump to defend an authority when they lash out from a position which is so clearly not the moral high ground. Why is that? The American Government destroyed this mans life because he exposed their crimes. You can’t ignore the Governments crimes — which stretch far back —- while being fixated on his violations of some social contract that has been long trampled upon by the government itself.