At last some semblance of common sense, if not precisely justice, has been achieved: Julian Assange has exchanged his small cell in Wandsworth for the rather more generously proportioned rooms of Vaughan Smith's mansion in Suffolk.
But what the hell are the Swedish prosecutors up to?
They appear to be motivated, at least in part, by sheer vindictiveness, a determination to make Assange suffer the ignominy and discomfort of prison even though it is unlikely that a conviction would result in a custodial sentence.
But it also seems pretty clear that the US State Department is involved in some way. Alleged victims and prosecutors have changed their stories and their minds in a manner which suggests some form of external pressure. And we have seen how the State Department can influence multi-national companies such as Amazon, Paypal and Mastercard with 'legal' advice.
(As we know, the State Department can produce lawyers who will advise that waterboarding and other forms of torture are legal, so it's not very difficult to generate legal advice which claims that hosting websites and processing payments to a defence fund is also against the law.)
The fact is, Assange is merely the messenger. The material involved was, apparently, officially available to a couple of million people before it hit WikiLeaks - which stretches any definition of the word 'secret' - and nothing I have seen can reasonably be thought to endanger security.
What we are seeing, in fact, is the full resources of assorted states being brought to bear on an individual citizen in order to save a bit of embarrassment. Now that is scary.
Today's listening: Test Match Special, of course, and - with many thanks to Campbell - Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Crazy for Christmas.
But what the hell are the Swedish prosecutors up to?
They appear to be motivated, at least in part, by sheer vindictiveness, a determination to make Assange suffer the ignominy and discomfort of prison even though it is unlikely that a conviction would result in a custodial sentence.
But it also seems pretty clear that the US State Department is involved in some way. Alleged victims and prosecutors have changed their stories and their minds in a manner which suggests some form of external pressure. And we have seen how the State Department can influence multi-national companies such as Amazon, Paypal and Mastercard with 'legal' advice.
(As we know, the State Department can produce lawyers who will advise that waterboarding and other forms of torture are legal, so it's not very difficult to generate legal advice which claims that hosting websites and processing payments to a defence fund is also against the law.)
The fact is, Assange is merely the messenger. The material involved was, apparently, officially available to a couple of million people before it hit WikiLeaks - which stretches any definition of the word 'secret' - and nothing I have seen can reasonably be thought to endanger security.
What we are seeing, in fact, is the full resources of assorted states being brought to bear on an individual citizen in order to save a bit of embarrassment. Now that is scary.
Today's listening: Test Match Special, of course, and - with many thanks to Campbell - Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Crazy for Christmas.
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