If Democracy is government of the People, by the People and for the People, any one who withholds the truth from the people cannot be but a traitor to Democracy.

I would suggest that in modern terms, this classic interview between Julian Assange and Julia Gillard on Q & A has "Gone Viral"
The video of this interview has gone around the world, as has the video of the March 16th Sydney Peace Foundation meeting in the Sydney Town Hall covering this same subject.
I watched both the Q&A Clip and the hour-long video from the Syney Town Hall on overseas web sites.

In this episode with Julian Assange, which has only just commenced, we in Australia are not now the Judges. We are the Judged as to how we treat our own citizens.

Oh dear. Yet another piece of under-researched, overblown journalism, whose only objective can possibly be... actually, I'm not at all sure what it could be.

A real journalist would, at the very least, done some basic research on the topic of treason.

Here's what Commonwealth Law has to say - it's all in Division 80 - "Treason and urging violence".

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html

A real journalist would have explained to the rest of us under which clause Assange's accusation of a treasonous act may be identified.

Oops. There isn't one. So the entire "should perhaps the Australian people consider charging you with treason" question was just an emotive TV soundbite. And should have been treated as such. Unfortunately, as Assange and Jones were well aware, Julia hadn't brought her copy of the Act with her, and so fumbled the answer.

Which made it good TV.

Crap journalism, though, to perpetuate the treason image without questioning its validity.

Causes me to wonder exactly what the description "Tess Lawrence is a journalist advocate" actually means. Perhaps she's not actually a journalist at all, in which case it is just another scatterbrained opinion, and all is forgiven.

The whole episode is a storm in a teacup. George Bush isn't going to be charged for war crimes - and lying to the American people. Neither is John Howard who supported him. Neither is Tony Blair.

Harold Macmillan wasn't charged for handing over to Stalin more than two million Soviet citizens who had surrendered to Field Marshal Alexander's forces. At the same time many thousands of anti-Communist Yugoslavs, refugees, and members of para-military units, were similarly handed over to Tito's partisans. Both categories were either summarily or eventually slaughtered often in circumstances of extreme cruelty. One has to only read the book, "The Minister And The Massacres," by Nokolai Tolstoy to get the full picture.

Who knows what sort of deals are done in back-rooms between super-powers and their allies. None of whom are ever brought to account. I watched the Q and A program - and thought that the PM answered Julian Assange quite well.

Dear Skeptic. You Darling softie. Such a great idea innit. Democracy.
By for and of the people.
Thanks for reminding us. Keep doing it. Thanks for reading the article.
Tess Lawrence

Dear Raise the Dust. Spot on. It has indeed gone a bit viral since posted ( longer versions ) on Independent Australia and Truthout and now OLO.

I'd love to know how you feel about putting protagonist and antagonist on the same platform at the same time. I just don't get why we so often tolerate interviews with pollies who refuse to appear on air with
their opposite number.Is it just me ?
Keep kicking up the dust.
Tess Lawrence

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html

I think that Julian Assange would have done his research, seeing that he has so much time on his hands.
Given that our Australian Government is fully aware of the fate of Julian Assange and the people involved in Wikileaks should they
get into the clutches of the United States legal system, imprisonment and torture.
This is an action which is alleged to have taken place between one Australian Citizen and a group, Wikileaks,
and between the government and a group of its own citizens.

80.2A Urging violence against groups
Offences
(1) A person (the first person ) commits an offence if:

(a) the first person intentionally urges another person, or a group, to use force or violence against a group (the targeted group ); and
(b) the first person does so intending that force or violence will occur; and
(c) the targeted group is distinguished by race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion; and
(d) the use of the force or violence would threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 7 years.
Note: For intention, see section 5.2.

(2) A person (the first person ) commits an offence if:
(a) the first person intentionally urges another person, or a group, to use force or violence against a group (the targeted group ); and
(b) the first person does so intending that force or violence will occur; and
(c) the targeted group is distinguished by race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years.

5.2 Intention

(1) A person has intention with respect to conduct if he or she means to engage in that conduct.
(2) A person has intention with respect to a circumstance if he or she believes that it exists or will exist.
(3) A person has intention with respect to a result if he or she means to bring it about or is aware that it will occur in the ordinarycourse of events

Interestingly (or more specifically, sadly) there is indeed no law that I could find that would put Julia Gillard under a charge of treason (though I find that charge strangely appropriate).
Treason law states that if an Australian provides information to an outside source that is hostile to the Australian nation- as opposed to an Australian NationAL, which is the case of what Gillard is doing to Assange.

Interestingly, there are no laws that Assange had broken- however, I have found laws that state David Hicks is indeed guilty of treason, and many Islamist commentators are guilty of the parallel offense of urging violence against a group!

So Julia, don't you have more important things to chase after than someone who upholds a basic democratic right, against people that actually have a criminal charge to answer to?

The Gillard Government is a legitimate government so is unlikely to answer charges of treason in the case of Assange. The PM is not guilty of treason and the government is providing the usual diplomatic support as any Australian national.

Governments do on occasion legitimately share information with other countries in relation to many crimes such as drug or people trafficking, identity theft, terrorism, money laundering but Assange does not fall into these categories.

The general public have no way of ascertaining whether the Australian Government has supplied information about Assange to the US. Assange has committed no crime. Is the US Government even gathering evidence with intent to charge. There is silence on the subject because I suspect there is no case to answer.

Treason is one of those concepts of which it's application depends on your position in the social order ie. citizen, 'legitimate government', freedom fighter such as in the Treason Trials of the 1700s when parliamentary reformers were tried as traitors. No Western Government could get away with that now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1794_Treason_Trials

While I am a strong supporter of Wikileaks and any attempts to make governments more accountable and open to scrutiny, the idea of charging the PM with treason is a bit OTT in the same way as the absurd Tea Party has called for Assange to be tried as a traitor.

The PM is more to be remonstrated for failing to give public support for Assange in her earlier ill-informed comment about illegal activity as a knee-jerk reaction so as not to ruffle the US-Australia alliance.

I will be watching closely the Australian Government's respose should there be any attempts to extradite Assange to the US to answer any future charges.

For my money's worth I don't think it will happen given growing support for the goals and aims of Wikileaks and a growing demand for greater citizen participation.

and thought that the PM answered Julian Assange quite well.
lexi,
do you think that would be the case if the program was not government funded ?

The fun is that the -of, by and for the people’s- bit comes from a trained lawyer and, to date, no one knows what he meant by ‘people’ as it seems that Lincoln was a rat in a government of rodents who, earlier had made short work of the Aborigines of the continent he then ruled.

To RaiseTheDust

I frequently visit of the State Library of Victoria that has many shelves of law-books’.

The eminent writers’ of those books amply dissert on ‘The Rule of Law” and often mention specific Laws while I ask myself: ‘who wrote that Law’.

So the most fundamental question; ‘Who’s Law” never comes to the fore.

But, if nobody tells us the chap or chaps that wrote the Laws those books refer to, we all know the ones who did not.

I did not, the ones who take my rubbish to the tip did not, and the petty thief who pinched my full shopping bags did not.

Who then made that law if not one in a position of privilege achieved by the criminal use of the gift of the gab?

‘Law, and ’whose law’ are inseparable concepts.

I have wondered why Labor did not redo the AWB enquiry with much broader limits. Thus both Howard and Downer to name just 2 would indeed be facing this charge.

So the reason they didn't was the Libs could resurrect other issues next time they are in.

I say do it, I want all politicians in jail with their mates, criminals, where they belong. Let them explain face to face to the drug users why that's a crime and so on.

Dear RobbyH. Spot on about the AWB. Thanks for raising the issue.
The full story has never been properly investigated or reported.
Okay, all you citizen journalists out there. What's the real story ?
Do you have any inside info RobbyH ?
Tess Lawrence

The usually astute Pelican asserts, bald faced, that Gillard and govt (and others in the past?); that no one in the government is "guilty of treason".
How do you know that?
My suspicions are that some of them within our political parties arguably are, "traitors". And at least half of them would come from the NSW Right and most from the right in general, with its culture of McCarthyism
Hasn't the whole point of Wikileaks been, to unmask the corruption of freedom of information and open accountability that has to be the hall mark of a democracy.
Sorry, like Tess, I fancy I smell a rather a large rat, shunned by the ghost of Joan Coxsedge, amd well-nurtured by a foreign power , that thinks its birthright is the right to interfere in the affairs of other nations, overtly or under the cover of darkness.