Specifically, he mentions USAID vs. Alliance for Open Socieyy International II.
The case centered around this requirement for funding to be given:
As a condition of this funding, entities were required to also promote an anti-prostitution pledge requiring them to establish "a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking", a term known as the Policy Requirement.
We know why NGOs would be against this, unfortunately, but it’s weird that this is what Lauria is directly mentioning here regarding SCOTUS rulings that affect his appeal….
However the denial of his rights in an American courtroom would go beyond the First Amendment to all of his U.S. constitutional rights, according to the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc., which says that a non-U.S. citizen acting outside the U.S. has no constitutional protections at all.
Is this a correct statement in terms of the law? Or does Lauria have no clue what he’s talking about?
Either way, it’s interesting that human trafficking is once again coming to the fore in the Assange case.
U.S. Constitutional Rights ONLY pertain to U.S. citizens and inhabitants on U.S. land. Once you're outside the country and get nabbed by a foreign govt, you're on your own. The military used to drill that into our heads in the lead up to an overseas deployment. I know plenty of people who I served with that got caught doing something illegal in a foreign land and there was absolutely nothing the govt could do to stop the host nation from prosecuting and convicting and then sentencing them to prison.
What Assange is being targeted for goes beyond U.S. law, too. If it didn't, Britain would've already handed him over instead of letting him languish at Belmarsh Prison.