New storm over Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has perhaps caused more heartburn than all the computer hackers in the world put together, has got political asylum from Ecuador. It will be interesting to see if the Australian whistleblower can now manage to step out of its London embassy and reach safe haven in that South American country, under the protection of his saviour, President Rafael Correa.
The British foreign office has, of course, taken a diametrically opposite view; threatening to storm the embassy to seize Mr Assange and extradite him to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. It is debatable if the UK is justified in breaking diplomatic conventions to seize this fugitive from its justice system, who is in breach of bail conditions.
Assange’s case is an extraordinary one in the era of digital overload, in which so many electronic developments have taken place at a frightening pace. In the old days, they would have dealt with spies rather more summarily. To that extent, the whistleblower website’s chief, now holed up in luxury in London’s fashionable Knightsbridge, appears fortunate. Even so, it was perhaps presumptuous of WikiLeaks to threaten the British government against any attempt to enter the Ecuador embassy premises.
If Britain had indeed wished to act in contravention of international norms, it would have done so already rather than await advice from people who unethically hacked and accessed information, however useful though such nuggets of information may have been in the public domain as they exposed the dark doings of governments.
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