Julian Assange Warning About Dangers of US Government Asserting no Freedom of Speech for non-US Citizens

An excerpt from Julian Assange’s full testimony to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg. 01.10.24 - Strasbourg, France. Source: Liberty Vault YouTube channel.

Transcript:

If the situation were not already bad enough in my case, the US government asserted a dangerous new global legal position. Only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights. But the US claims its Espionage Act still applies to them regardless of where they are. So Europeans in Europe must obey US secrecy law with no defences at all as far as the US government is concerned. An American in Paris can talk about what the US government is up to – perhaps. But for a Frenchman in Paris, to do so is a crime without any defence and he may be extradited just like me.

Now that one foreign government has formally asserted that Europeans have no free speech rights, a dangerous precedent has been set.

Other powerful states will inevitably follow suit.

Link to full transcript here.