Traditional journalists may abandon WikiLeaks’ Assange at their own peril

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/traditional-journalists-may-abandon-wikileaks-assange-at-their-own-peril/2019/04/11/45ae985c-5c84-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html

by danso • 7 years ago

115 36 7 years ago

washingtonpost.com

telesilla• 7 years ago

Outline link: https://outline.com/spbLvB

pie_hacker2• 7 years ago

I have frequently seen the argument that Assange should be incarcerated because he is dis-likeable. Thankfully, that is not a crime in the U.S.

It seems that the federal government is trying to prosecute Assange for obtaining classified information from a source, a practice that is common among investigative journalists. (The details, I suppose, are in exactly how he obtained that information from the source). This seems to me to be clearly protected under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A democracy that prosecutes civillians who obtain secret information from sources for the purpose of disseminating said information to the public will likely not remain a democracy for long.

AnimalMuppet• 7 years ago

That's not what they're trying to prosecute him for. They're prosecuting him for conspiracy to break into DoD computers. That's kind of similar, but it's not the same thing.

wolfgke• 7 years ago

They're prosecuting him for conspiracy to break into DoD computers.

So for doing source research.

pie_hacker2• 7 years ago

You're correct, but it's not immediately clear to me what it means to be part of such a conspiracy.

Would simply receiving classified information from Chelsea Manning count? (Probably not, I would guess.)

What about receiving classified information and then remarking "Wow, this is great stuff! I'm going to pass this information on to prominent news organizations through my website called Wikileaks. You don't have more that you could send me, do you?" Would this count as conspiracy if his remark lead to Manning obtaining more information in an illegal manner? It seems that something along these lines may have happened.

It seems to me that Assange should only be prosecuted if he broke into DoD computers himself. It doesn't appear that such an event occurred. I believe that discourse between a journalist and a source (or any two civillians, for that matter) is protected by the 1st Amendment. Thus, encouraging Manning to hack government computers, or even describing to her how to hack government computers[1], should both be protected by the 1st Amendment.

[1] Perhaps this opinion is controversial. Allow me to lay out an example:

Source: "I've sent you all the info I have! Everything else is password-protected." Reporter: "The password isn't 'password123', is it?" Source: "Hey, that worked! Let me send you some more stuff to help with your expose."

In this case, or even if the reporter suggested something more technically advanced like "Hey, look up sql injection on Wikipedia," I believe that the reporter's speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. (The source's activities are almost certainly illegal, but that doesn't answer the question of whether they should be prosecuted for them).

rayiner2• 7 years ago

No, he’s being prosecuted for working with Manning to break into government computers, including trying to crack a password. That is not protected journalistic activity.

Shivetya• 7 years ago

it may be what they are prosecuting him but they sending a very direct message to all the press at the same time. as in, like we have read with many other cases, the government can make any charge they want to get you. you might walk that fine line perfect but it doesn't matter when the people who hold the law in the backpocket can create new lines and stretch them as needed.

what people like assange, snowden, and manning, did, along with organizations like wikileaks, is take the muffled humor everyone joked about knowing their governments were up to no good and put it out in the open. sadly we need people and organizations like this because no matter how much we claim to be free we truly never are.

are there better ways to do what has been done? probably, but it is no less likely that better ways will simply be portrayed as needed to get the same legal outcome.

seeing that they are so narrow in their prosecution they are probably hoping to make it swift but I suspect as the weeks roll by there will be many more people standing behind assange. not necessarily for him but what his actions represented and accomplished.

danso3• 7 years ago

I have no doubt that many folks who should be protesting Assange's arrest but aren't are acting thus because they dislike him. But I haven't seen anyone actually make that argument explicitly. I've seen more of the opposite -- e.g. that even though he may be an asshole, his arrest is wrong and sets a bad precedent.

belltaco4• 7 years ago

Here, I will try.

In my opinion, Assange lost his moral high ground after it came out that he was communicating with Trump Jr. and helping the Trump campaign. And that he delayed and timed the DNC and Podesta leaks to cause maximum advantage to Trump, instead of just releasing them when ready. On top of that Wikileaks lied that they did not have contacts with the Trump campaign.

Not to mention that DNC and Podesta were private entities, not government officials and zero illegality was revealed by those leaks. He later was asking Trump Jr to ask Trump to recommend himself as the Aussie ambassador to the US as payment for helping Trump win.

If he exposed corruption or overreach in the Obama admin, or something that Hillary did as SoS, that had the side effect of Trump winning, that's fair game and he would have my support.

In other words, exposing government overreach = good.

Indiscriminately releasing private entities emails with intent to politically influence and gain political clout = bad.

For all of Snowden's fault of releasing too much information and details of NSA thats expected of a foreign focused intelligence agency like NSA after the initial leaks, atleast he never took partisan political sides.

arduanika2• 7 years ago

Yup. Silence is way easier.

dragonwriter2• 7 years ago

It seems that the federal government is trying to prosecute Assange for obtaining classified information from a source

No, they are prosecuting him for conspiring with Manning to gain access to classified material to which Manning did not have lawful access.

Conspiracy to commit a crime involves two or more people agreeing to a common purpose, which purpose involves a crime, and at least one of those people taking at least one overt act to advance toward acheiving the criminal purpose. (Note they the overt act can be by any member of the conspiracy, and all of them.can be charged.)

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 7 years ago

and who thus should be afforded the same First Amendment protections given to news organizations

The news media likes to pretend that there is a special status for news organizations and journalists. This is a common misconception that we need to fight against. The First Amendment is not just for news organization, it is for every US person. Back when the First Amendment was proposed and ratified, anyone could obtain a printing press. The First Amendment makes no distinction for a news organization or other publisher vs an ordinary citizen.

An example of new organizations trying to give themselves special status is Chris Cuomo assertion that if you were not a media organization it would be a crime for you to possess the Wikileaks emails.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

danso3• 7 years ago

I agree that people misinterpret the 1st Amendment as providing protections specific to "news organizations" (though various states have given various state-level protections to news orgs). But the author here doesn't appear to be doing that. The full paragraph and the next:

Is the WikiLeaks founder, who until Thursday had been holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for years, essentially a publisher — though a notably strange one — who believes in taking radical steps to expose government secrets, and who thus should be afforded the same First Amendment protections given to news organizations?
Or is he a reckless traitor — and by no means a journalist — who deserves no such consideration and who should be prosecuted without worrying about free-press concerns.

Her rhetorical question allows for Assange, an individual, to be considered a publisher, i.e. a news organization. In the next graf, it's clearer she's framing the conflict as: "Is Assange a journalist and thus are his actions protected by the rights to a free press?". But I agree that the sentence you quoted could have been better stated as:

and who thus should be afforded the same First Amendment protections given to journalists.

But I assume the reason why she said "news organizations" is because her intended audience are people who work at news organizations, i.e. they should be reading it as:

and who thus should be afforded the same First Amendment protections given to you.

hermitdev2• 7 years ago

Well, regardless of your opinion of Assange, he cannot be guilty of traitorous activity. He is not a US citizen or even resident. He is not in a position to have committed treason against the US. Might he have committed crimes against the US? Sure, if the conspiracy to break into US Gov systems charge is true.

Now Manning? That was treason, arguably during a time of war. Once upon a time, that was a summary execution. Manning got off easy with the 35 year initial sentence and even easier after Obama commuted the sentence.

ineedasername• 7 years ago

Back when the First Amendment was proposed and ratified, anyone could obtain a printing press

No, they were rather expensive pieces of equipment. You're better off with a town-cryer example, as anyone could stand on a corner and yell out the news (or their opinions) The town-cryer approach is like today's internet where anyone can throw up a blog. But the modern equivalent of a small printing press from a hundred years is still beyond the reach of most.

nilskidoo• 7 years ago

WL publishes documents with minimal context and no subtext, no added commentary or presentation whatsoever. Which shows how dependent on presentation has news reporting become. What Assange accomplished should be viewed as a priceless resource for journalists, reams of data and pure info, in unedited original words, there to speak for itself. If "fake news" is the grand enemy today, then the feds are after the one and only purveyor of hard facts without color, what they purport to favor in reactionary ideology.

senectus1• 7 years ago

but they also release selectively. and with precision timing.

I'm deeply conflicted about WL and Assange. I agree that a WL like org is needed for open democracy. but at the same time these fuckers were clearly working against democracy and in cahoots with the Russians.

belltaco4• 7 years ago

...while DM'ing Trump Jr at the same time:

“Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,” WikiLeaks went on, pointing Trump Jr. to the link wlsearch.tk, which it said would help Trump’s followers dig through the trove of stolen documents and find stories. “There’s many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it,” WikiLeaks went on. “Btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4.”

What a joke.

And propagating nonsense on the website.

https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate

Leading to https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-pod...

laughinghan• 7 years ago

What you describe sounds great, but that's not what WikiLeaks was like. They exposed stuff like "information for every female voter in 79 of Turkey’s 81 provinces — more than 20 million entries’ worth of addresses and cell-phone numbers".

Is that the kind of "reams of data and pure info", "hard facts without color" that should be viewed as a "priceless resource for journalists"? Of course not. That's negligent exposure of people's private information, towards absolutely no public interest whatsoever, and causing much public harm.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/why-did-wikileaks-hel...

Traditional journalists may abandon WikiLeaks’ Assange at their own peril

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