Julian Assange To Write For Swedish Tabloid

An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has signed on as a columnist for Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet. Why such a move? Maybe there's something more to be found in Swedish law when you are employed by a newspaper." Here's an account in English, including a translation of the interview that forms part of the linked Aftenbladet article.

Comments

Swedish Law

[cappp]

I'm not a Swedish law expert, and if someone has a better grasp they should correct me, but it would seem that there's a clear legal advantage to being a journalist. The Freedom of the Press Act includes the following in Chapter 1, Article 1:

All persons shall likewise be free, unless otherwise provided in this Act, to communicate information and intelligence on any subject whatsoever, for the purpose of publication in print, to an author or other person who may be deemed to be the originator of material contained in such printed matter, the editor or special editorial office, if any, of the printed matter, or an enterprise which professionally purveys news or other information to periodical publications.
All persons shall furthermore have the right, unless otherwise provided in this Act, to procure information and intelligence on any subject whatsoever, for the purpose of publication in print, or in order to communicate information under the preceding paragraph.

What I found more interesting was the stuff buried down in Chapter 7 where it's noted that

Art. 4. With due regard to the purpose of freedom of the press for all under Chapter 1, the following acts shall be deemed to be offences against the freedom of the press if committed by means of printed matter and if they are punishable under law:

4. unauthorised trafficking in secret information, whereby a person, with-out due authority but with no intent to assist a foreign power, conveys, consigns or discloses information concerning any circumstance of a secret nature, the disclosure of which to a foreign power could cause detriment to the defence of the Realm or the national supply of goods in the event of war or exceptional conditions resulting from war, or otherwise to the security of the Realm, regardless of whether the information is correct; any attempt or preparation aimed at such unauthorised trafficking in secret information;

That would seem to suggest that if Swedish defence is undermined by WikiLeaks then there are grounds for prosecution. As far as I know Sweden doesn't have forces in Iraq but they do have people in Afghanistan.

Re:Swedish Law

[copponex]

The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today. Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added. But it would have to be a state that would never "come under pressure from the United States", he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

Here's the current wanted page for OBL. I guess we still don't have any evidence for 9/11:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Here's a note to anyone unfamiliar with how the law works: in order to prosecute a criminal and have them extradited from a foreign country, you have to present evidence to the ruling government. If you can't produce evidence, they are under no legal obligation to allow you to extradite anyone.

I guess the next time Cuba or Venezuela tries to extradite terrorists who've blown up Cuban airliners who are living in Miami, you won't mind if they drop some ordinance around Palm Beach until we capitulate.

Re:Tabloid?

[hpa]

Aftonbladet used to be a serious newspaper, but these days they're definitely a tabloid in every sense of the world, although not yet as far down the morass as the U.S. ones.

Re:Tabloid?

[CRCulver]

The major tabloids in the Nordic countries are to the "serious newspapers" what the New York Post is to the New York Times: less detailed articles, more "infotainment", a tendency to pounce on any small news item about crime or the private lives of politicians and declare it the collapse of society.

Re:Tabloid?

[Hadlock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftonbladet

Tabloid has different connotations in Europe. Tabloid is more of a printing size than a rating of journalistic value. It looks like the publication he'll be writing for is on par with the New York Post or one of the many English tabloids like The Sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid

Re:Tabloid?

[Anonymous Coward]

The newspaper has some serious journalism, but also entertainment non-news of various B or C-rate celebrities and such. Their specialty in all cases seems to be how to phrase the headlines as misleadingly as possible (and pause videos in the most compromising and misleading frames possible for use as pictures) to attract people to read the articles which are usually much less interesting than the headlines would have one think. They also enjoy making up new double words (like 'nude shock', 'sex attack' or 'death cheese'.) All in all, their reputation is probably not as good as Dagens Nyheter or Svenska Dagbladet, but it could

Re:Or they could board a plane

[copponex]

Bit silly to say Afghanistan isn't a threat when it has been unable to stop its citizens from starting wars.

Here's a list of the 9/11 hijackers. Not a single one of them is an Afghan citizen. No Iraqis on the list, either. The vast majority were from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. As of today, nearly 9 years after 9/11, we still do not have an extradition treaty with either nation. Even if we had discovered evidence to charge someone with, we could not extradite them to face charges for their crimes.

Canard?

[copponex]

Talk about canards. Using fancy sounding words cannot change history.

Say what you will about the merits of the Iraq expedition, it was at least in the consideration stage in the Clinton administration and would have happened with or without 9/11.

According to some people, Iraq presented no threat to the US. Doesn't sound like preparations for invasion to me. Maybe you're confusing that policy with the policy presented by Project for a New American Century. They begged Clinton to invade Iraq, but he ignored them. Probably because, as this guy Dick Cheney once said, the US could quickly find itself in a quagmire if it invaded.

9/11 was not presented as one of the major factors in the decision by anyone worthy of attention.

SHENANIGANS.

Not only did Cheney and Bush repeatedly make the connection, they had to specifically recant their opinion years later. They made the accusation so many times, and through so many propaganda arms, that by the time the war came around, 70% of Americans believed there was a link.

I'm sure in the bizarro fantasy land where the (R) means infallible, you'll just pretend that none of that happened. Which is alright, if you're not interested in reality.

Now, go home and get your shine box.