US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/26/prosecuting-julian-assange-for-espionage-poses-danger-freedom-of-press

by rrgmitchell • 7 years ago

346 128 7 years ago

theguardian.com

skilled• 7 years ago

Apparently not big enough of a threat to organize protests as big as those in Hong Kong right now.

ryanmercer2• 7 years ago

There's a pretty big difference between:

'free media'

and

'doxing individuals who's identities were protected because if they are publicly revealed not only are their lives at serious risk but it also exposes their close family and friends to rape/murder/torture until a time at which they are found and violently murdered because terrorists and hostile governments actually do this sort of thing to their perceived enemies, just like what happened to journalists (not informants/spies) like Jamal Khashoggi and many of the REAL journalists listed at https://cpj.org/data/killed/ '

syn0byte• 7 years ago

The irony in your argument is absolutely breath taking. The footage of the US Military murdering a dozen people, of which 2 worked for the press, was part of leaks for which he now faces charges.

"How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."

cyphar21• 7 years ago

Not to mention the evidence of the US government lying about the numbers of civilian casualties (read: murders), or the many examples of money laundering, and tit-for-tat deals. The idea that nothing was gained from the Afghan/Iraqi war logs alone is beyond ridiculous. Let alone the mountains of other leaks they published before and since.

ryanmercer2• 7 years ago

You can release that information and still redact the names of private individuals that are informants/spies so that you aren't signing their gruesome death sentence at the hands of the 'enemy'...

foldr4• 7 years ago

No, the comment refers to Wikileaks releasing the names of American informants in Iraq, potentially endangering their lives.

josefresco• 7 years ago

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the people.

ANPEQ-1• 7 years ago

Thank you. There is such thing as legitimate secrets. The threat of jail for wholesale and thoughtless release of top secret information... is a good threat. Professional journalists know this and shouldn't jump on the Assange bandwagon; they understand that their power comes a duty of care.

rplst82• 7 years ago

Secrets are just that, secrets. Not some legally protected object. If you don't want your secrets getting out, then don't tell people them, or better yet - don't do bad things. Making secrets legally protected for those that have not signed an NDA and do not participate in government inner-workings or aren't even citizens of that country is a dangerous precedent that erodes the first amendment.

What would stop a government from making something "classified" ex post facto just to silence and/or jail nay-sayers, political opponents, or oppressed peoples? The answer is nothing, and this is exactly why this cannot stand.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

If a secret is legitinate nobody should need threats of jail to keep it but its own merits.

Even the damnable rhetorical justification for abuses "fire in a crowded theater" standard of nuclear launch codes this applies to - since if they were compromised let the whole goddamn world know it is 1-2-3-4-5 so that they can have actual security instead of illusion of security and the fuck ups responsible being safe from any deserved backlash.

simion3142• 7 years ago

If I am a non US journalist why should be illegal for me to publish an US secret especially war crimes and not weapon or defense designs ?

maze-le2• 7 years ago

This is why there are countless indictments against sources. Editorial work [the very things he is accused of] should not be viewed as illegitimate -- even if you think that the sources should be jailed -- they have made the information public...

However that may be, sloppy/negligent editorial work i.e. the release of names (uncensored) can very well be a judicial issue -- but that is not what he is accused of. And it should definitely not be persecuted with the remnant of a war-time power grab [espionage act].

raxxorrax2• 7 years ago

Secrets need to be justified. Otherwise you cannot hold your allegedly democratic government accountable.

War crimes are no valid secrets and there was no legitimate channel. You would be ethically required to act and leak the information.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

I hope you really didn't think that through. Because you just suggested that journalists should not exist when outlawed then.

If they are completely subservient to the law then they should not break it even when it is wrong. Therefore it is justified to do violence against them.

Goddamn right journalists should be above the law! The truth is fundamentally above the law as nothing written as law can change the truth. The nation-states running travesties and making reporting on them state secrets that is even more reason to report on them.

Fuck treating nation-states and laws as sacred. Any student of 20th century history (really before) should know why doing so is a dangerous, stupid, and /evil/ idea.

luckylion• 7 years ago

Goddamn right journalists should be above the law!

In very select instances, and under certain circumstances. A corrupt journalist is terrible and shouldn't be above the law at all. Granted you could argue that he's not a journalist if he doesn't adhere to journalistic standards, but that just makes it a battle over "is this person a journalist?"

superqwert• 7 years ago

"Goddamn right journalists should be above the law!" - so the Monarchy should not be above the law (Magna Carta), but journalists should?

The last people I would want to have additional privileges are journalists, who often love to create spin or ruin people's lives for a story.

simion3142• 7 years ago

You accuse him again of working with other countries, first of all there is no proof, second if I I am not an US citizen why should be bad for me to work for say China and publish Trump/Hillary emails.

Then finally he is accused because he promised to look into how to crack some passwords, the accusations are very weak and the result will be similar to the result of the "Saddam chemical weapons", aka US will decide that he won'ts you then some pretext will be created and then the propaganda will start to justify the pretext.

LoSboccacc2• 7 years ago

this whole election interference thing is egregious because it's the typical crime that's only bad when bad people do it, which is a very ugly and problematic standard when it comes to building a trial.

on the accusation of having extracted information as opposed to having received information I think we really don't have the elements to reach an informed conclusion, albeit I suspect by how the story developed that the trial will not be particularly fair to him.

nkozyra3• 7 years ago

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good.

Who is saying this? It was simply a demonstrable example of why people need the protections we afford the media.

Assange is not a journalist,

There exists no binary test for "a journalist"/"not a journalist" and by the broadest definition it's not a particularly hard thing to meet. By quibbling over the definition we create wiggle room for the government to decide when someone isn't or isn't a journalist and charge accordingly. We should afford someone like Assange the same general rights we would for a veteran journalist at WSJ or NYT.

belorn2• 7 years ago

I took a look at the list for Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and asked myself, how many of those journalists broke the law?

The 2019 winner reported on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of violating hundreds of young women. In order to write the story they went to former USC employees and solicited, among other things, patient confidential information. This is of course a crime by both the journalists and former employees, but one that most people will agree benefited society.

I wonder how many other journalists has won that award because they approach people to get confidential information in order to further a investigation. My guess is a lot. I doubt we could have investigative reporting at all if journalists could not ask questions in fear of being guilty of soliciting confidential information.

gamblor956• 7 years ago

In order to write the story they went to former USC employees and solicited, among other things, patient confidential information.

What you have written is libel, and I suggest you remove your comment, since the LA Times has stated exactly how they conducted the investigation.

Ryan, Hamilton and a third colleague, Paul Pringle, kept knocking on doors, and over a period of months, they persuaded more than 20 current and former USC employees and a handful of former patients to talk on an anonymous basis. The story they told was jaw-dropping.

Unlike similar stories about sexual abuse, our investigation did not have the benefit of police records, court filings or other public documents because none existed. It was based almost exclusively on interviews.

The LA Times journalists did not look at patient records for the first story; they based the reporting solely on interviews with patients and with staff. They found these patients by basically just cold-calling people that might have been victims until they found some. Given the hundreds of women the doctor molested, this was actually not that hard to do (though in most cases this would have been like finding a needle in a haystack).

After the story broke, hundreds of women contacted the LA Times and provided permission for the LA Times to access their records as part of the investigation because they didn't trust USC to investigate properly without external pressure.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-times-pulitzer-geo...

cyphar21• 7 years ago

arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states

The claim by Mueller that the emails were stolen by Russian operatives is an incredible stretch of the imagination given the following:

* The public audit logs during the leaks provides clear evidence that the transfer must have happened locally using a USB drive because the transfer speed was too fast to happen over the internet -- Bill Binney and some other ex-NSA whistleblowers did tests to verify this[1]. Which makes it seem quite likely it was leaked by an insider of the DNC.

* Where did the data provided by the report (such as "XYZ searched for 'russia' on the DNC servers") come from? You might think the NSA, but all NSA intel is classified and so the President must have declassified it (which we would've heard about). It seems incredibly likely that this "evidence" was provided by the third-party "cyber threat intelligence" company which the DNC gave their email server to instead of the FBI when they broke the chain of custody.

Now, it is still possible that it happened -- but it is at the very least an incredibly suspicious claim.

[1] https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-r...

spsrich2• 7 years ago

Amazing the guardian are complaining. Their editorial line usually comes from MI6

mc323• 7 years ago

I wish people would just focus on the part that regards journalism, free press, free speech, sources and releasing leaked information.

All the rest will fall along political lines. Liked or disliked for the effects on political allies and foes. It’s obvious if you have followed this case.

Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved him. The state apparatus however still see this as an adversarial act.

So, instead let’s discuss the implications of censorship (state and self-imposed) and journalism this case has.

bryanlarsen• 7 years ago

I disagree; much of the right still seems to be calling for him to be locked away for a long time despite his role in getting Trump elected. Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped.

rplst82• 7 years ago

The OP's point is that many people have flipped their positions on this topic - particularly when it suits them politically.

nkozyra3• 7 years ago

Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped.

I really don't think this is true. The Guardian is more acutely aware of the threat this poses to general protections afforded journalists (even outside the U.S.)

Assange's reputation is putting an unfortunate taint to the story; if we separate the man from what's actually being done in the criminal charges, it's probably a lot clearer to people from both sides of the aisle that this is a threat to the fourth estate.

Miner49er3• 7 years ago

True, many leftist news organizations have been consistently defending him and calling this out as an attack on free speech. For example, the Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, etc.

blub• 7 years ago

The implications are grim.

Governments worldwide are tightening the screws, becoming more secretive and spying extensively on their citizens. Voting doesn't work, as most parties support this encroachment on civil liberties in the name of fighting various evils.

I don't have any solutions and little hope. In the past it used to be that totalitarian governments fell because the population was poor and deeply unhappy. What happens when the government has access to almost perfect information about its citizens, insights that even they might not have? And if they are able to offer decent living standards in exchange for fewer freedoms, they would have an iron grip on power.

jstewartmobile• 7 years ago

It's been "Brave New World" for a while now.

"The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.

Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World."

http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orwe...

throwaway8879• 7 years ago

It also seems to me that the possibility of a revolution, in any sense of the word, is getting more and more miniscule, no matter which angle you look at it, whether it's because many people simply don't care or are happy to voluntarily give up private information for diminishing doses of dopamine hits.

The thing about any major revolutionary change is that the initial seed is planted through breaking some kind of law. And if we get to the point where breaking simple laws is impossible because of the near-complete information the state actor has on it's people, things are likely to get worse.

I do see a bleak future ahead. And grim.

moorhosj• 7 years ago

==Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved him.==

Not necessarily true according to this poll [1]. The alt-right might love him, but rank-and-file Republicans don't seem to:

"A new YouGov poll of 2,455 Americans shows that a majority (53%) say Assange should be extradited to America. That majority increases among both Republicans (59% supporting extradition) and Democrats (62% supporting extradition), but decreases to a plurality (46%) among Independents."

[1] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

haberman• 7 years ago

That is fascinating. I can't think of any other opinion where Republicans and Democrats have more in common than Independents, off the top of my head.

neves• 7 years ago

And the attack comes from the greatest democracy in the world. It is not from a dictatorial state. If the heroes are this way...

blancheneige• 7 years ago

Three years ago the right loathed him

Please do not conflate the right and the neocons.

dharma1• 7 years ago

The extradition request was just signed by the UK home secretary - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024

Now the court system will decide over the coming months/years whether or not to hand him over to the US, where he has a good chance of being imprisoned for a very long time.

sschueller• 7 years ago

I think that just means the request valid (correctly filled out form). If it is legal gets decided in the courts.

makomk• 7 years ago

It means that the current government has decided they want to support his extradition on these grounds. That's why the Home Secretary has to approve the request - there's a political aspect to extradition.

jillesvangurp2• 7 years ago

Better late than never. The appropriate time for an article like this and coming to his defense would have been last month when Assange moved from the Ecuadorian embassy to a UK prison. Especially considering that they benefited from collaborating with Assange and wikileaks for the very same things he's currently being held prison (and lets not get started on the BS. charges from Sweden).

The Guardian would do well to call on the UK government to release this man immediately.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

Really, the right time was 7 years ago. Last month was the last time it would've been possible to do anything about it at all. Now it is beyond too late -- it's a travesty of justice. Once he's shipped to the US there is effectively nothing we can do (other than hope a future president commutes his sentence before they torture him to death or insanity). IIRC the District Court of Virginia has never ruled in favour of the defendant in cases involving the Espionage Act -- which is why they prosecute all whistleblowers there. The idea he is going to have a fair trial is laughable.

lordlimecat• 7 years ago

Assange isn't in a UK prison because of leaking documents, but because he jumped bail.

jillesvangurp2• 7 years ago

Pretending this has nothing to do with Wikileaks is very disingenuous/naive. The Swedes would likely have quickly dropped the case if they hadn't been pressured by the US to not do so. The amount of press this case got in Sweden almost from day 1 was very unusual. The Swedes normally don't commit character murder like this without a trial. Yet, Assange was named and shamed in public, lots of details were leaked, and when the prosecutor dropped the case, she was overruled. It's not normal for high level politicians to get involved with cases like this in Sweden.

From what I understand, it was never actually a really strong case. Yet, the Swedes went all out on this. Likewise, the UK would never have put as much effort in pursuing such a minor matter had it not been for the Wikileaks thing. Nor would the Ecuadorians have considered hosting him for seven years. Both the US and UK have repeatedly pressured Sweden to not drop their extradition request and arrest warrant.

The fact that he's now being extradited to the US rather than Sweden only confirms that Wikileaks is the only reason all this stuff happened to Assange. Otherwise he'd be on his way to Sweden now. This was about the Swedish extradition request right until he walked out of the embassy.

magwa101• 7 years ago

Title response, no it's not.

Youcandothis• 7 years ago

If journalists are imprisoned, then it is.

nkozyra3• 7 years ago

This is reductive and not particularly useful. If the dissemination of information in this way is itself criminalized it puts shackles on the media's abilities to provide insight into the inner workings of the government.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day".

Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What kind of a message does that send? They also didn't tell anyone involved in the Snowden revelations when GCHQ forced them to destroy their copies. They also (through their tehnical incompetence) leaked documents that WikiLeaks had not published, then blamed WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for the disclosure. Not to mention the ludicrously false and harmful articles they published about him meeting Manafort and co-ordinating disclosures with the Trump campaign alongside many other government puff pieces disguised as "journalism".

Now, all of a sudden, they feel it's a good idea to try to help him. It's too late for that. The right time to try to help him was 7 years ago. Doing it now is for the birds, it's pure political theater so they can pretend (in 15 years) that they were "on the right side of history". Absolute bullshit.

Then again, saying something is better than nothing. Here in Australia there is no public discussion about Julian Assange (an Australian citizen and journalist being tried under US terrorism laws). Even more ironic is that we recently had a bit of a "freedom of the press" scuffle because the ABC was raided by the Australian Federal Police because of some coverage from 2017 over Australian Army war crimes. I find it incredible that nobody mentioned Julian. At all. What an absolute disgrace today's press is.

[1] https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255

creaghpatr• 7 years ago

And in fact, the Guardian published a blatently false story about Manafort holding "secret talks" with Assange, which they incredibly have still not retracted, despite literally zero evidence to back up this extraordinary claim.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...

spikels• 7 years ago

That story was clearly fake. The Guardian reporter and his source have both proven to be unreliable in the past, no other newspaper could confirm the claims and the Special Council looked into it and found nothing.

And the Guardian has now “re-establish[ed] links” with British military/intelligence after their breakup post-Snowden:

https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304...

Much of our media now coordinates and sources stories from national intelligence services. This has been true with some of the biggest stories of the past few years - many of which failed to pan out. So in some important cases our “news” has been literally government propaganda.

k1m4• 7 years ago

Agree, the Guardian has been one of the most vocal papers in attacking and ridiculing Assange. We collected some of this output here https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/assange/

Especially damning now with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture describing his treatment as psychological torture: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

52-6F-623• 7 years ago

I'm sorry, but your web site seems like a bit of nonsense veiled in a guise that it's out to present "the truth".

Many of the linked tweets don't resolve, and the rest of the web site appears to be purely a Greenwald support group in his seeming vendetta against his former employer.

The site also proclaims [paraphrasing] "do not trust the Guardian—read our write-ups of the same subjects instead".

I can't take that any more seriously than "corporate-state media".

I should add, if corporate-sponsored journalism outlets is a problem for your group, then I suggest you also drop The Intercept:

Financial backing for The Intercept was provided by Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald

bogle3• 7 years ago

"Support non-corporate media"? Are you suggesting The Guardian is a corporation? (They are a trust.) Ah, your comment history shows you are waging a vendetta.

chrisseaton4• 7 years ago

a basket with soap and socks

Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind?

The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment.

I don't get it?

devoply• 7 years ago

If I had to guess it's something (socks) you might give to a homeless person.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

If you have a friend who broke their ankle and is in hospital overnight, you send a basket with soap and socks (or more likely, flowers). If you are the head of a news organisation and have a fellow journalist (who you've worked with in the past and gave you "the biggest scoop in 30 years") and is currently facing political persecution by the most powerful government on earth, you send lawyers to help him get out of the situation and cover it endlessly until something is done about it. As Jacob Appelbaum said in the video I linked, it's an example of not treating such a serious situation seriously.

So yes -- it was a snub in the sense that it was literally the least useful form of "help" they could've given. Julian didn't need symbolic help. He needed actual help, and the Guardian left him out to dry (and then proceeded to publish countless articles smearing him -- including flat-out lying as in the "he met with Manafort" case).

Heck, WikiLeaks sent one of their lawyers to help Snowden in Hong Kong when he got in trouble (and bought him plane tickets and the rest of it -- even trying to rent a private jet to get him out of Russia while he was stuck in the airport) -- and they didn't even have anything to do with publishing the Snowden revelations.

vincelt• 7 years ago

It reminded me of various movies where a solid soap inside a sock is used as a weapon. Still I don't think this is what it's about in this case.

LMYahooTFY3• 7 years ago

Assange is riding the edge of what is considered permissible in society, where this line effectively divides the state and consolidated power, and the public.

These are matters of life and death for Assange, victims of the war crimes of which he's published, and future potential victims if journalistic freedom is further restricted and thus even less accountability for war criminals.

The Guardian has elected not to bring their clout and lawyers to bear on these matters. Instead, they sent Assange a basket of soap and socks for his extended stay in a foreign embassy.

Roonerelli• 7 years ago

What do you mean by "It's not even an article by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece"

The author of the piece, Alan Rusbridger, is the Editor-in-chief of the Guardian

cyphar21• 7 years ago

Ah, I didn't look up the author's credentials -- I will edit my comment. Often opinion pieces in newspapers are not the same as articles written by journalists and published as fully-fledged articles (usually they have an implicit caveat of "this is not the official opinion of $newspaper").

teh_klev2• 7 years ago

Rusbridger moved on in 2015. Also whilst editor he was complicit in the smear campaign against Assange which the Guardian has been running since seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.

binarray2000• 7 years ago

The Guardian also saw an increase of their circulation - in a dying industry - during the time when they've published WikiLeaks and Snowden documents. Which translates into an increase of ad spending and consequently revenue.

tyingq• 7 years ago

I suspect they are responding because the recently added on espionage charges do pose a threat to journalism. The earlier, more narrow charges, didn't really mean much for journalists.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

The accusations were only made public a few months ago (with some leaks less than a year ago pointing to them). If they feel so strongly that he's a journalist they should've been saying something for the past 7 years. Instead they've been publicly smearing him, and in some cases flat-out lying.

Assange predicted publicly for many years that the US was going to indict him under the Espionage Act, and now that it's happening everyone seems to be pretending that "we couldn't possibly have seen this coming!". I was still a high-school student in 2012 and I could see it as clear as day. I refuse to believe that any reasonable adult would be so naive to have not seen this coming.

threatofrain• 7 years ago

Instead of blaming the press like they failed you as your life mentor, I’d also argue the actions of the media imply the disinterest of the people. The press is largely a mirror, just like marketing — it’s all based on what people think will sell to you. More articles on math? That doesn’t sell.

k1m4• 7 years ago

The press plays a much more important role when it comes to power. Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky is the classic text on the propaganda role of the press. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12617.Manufacturing_Cons...

This old BBC interview with Noam Chomsky about the topic is also illuminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjENnyQupow

cyphar21• 7 years ago

I would suggest you read "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky. The media has an enormous amount of power in shaping public opinion, and in particular also has a massive amount of control over the Overton window. There are countless examples of this happening very publicly -- just in the past decade.

duxup3• 7 years ago

I don't really buy it.

The crime he was accused of by the US is helping someone try to break into a laptop. That's beyond most journalistic standards for conduct and a criminal act.

We'll see what can be proved in court from here.

Miner49er3• 7 years ago

You're behind. That was one charge. That charge doesn't really matter anymore. It wasn't really the attack on freedom of the press that the new charges are.

He's now being charged under the Espionage act for asking for classified info and publishing it. The new charges are what matter and what everyone is talking about.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

He is also being accused of 17 counts of breaching the Espionage Act with a maximum sentence of several lifetimes in prison. The conspiracy to break the CFAA charge was just the taster -- and I would argue that it was done tactically so that the discussion of Julian would be "he's a hacker not a journalist". If I was working for the DoJ that's without question what I would've done -- whether the accusations were true or not.

We live in a society based on the presumption of innocence. Just because the US government says something (which happens to be incredibly helpful for their narrative) does not make it true.

Also, he wasn't accused of trying to break into a laptop. He was accused of allegedly offering to help Chelsea Manning crack a password hash (which he never did). Aside from the fact that johntheripper is free software and is so trivial to use that teenagers know about it (making the entire story seem suspect on its face) it completely ignores that this is ridiculously minor compared to the Espionage Act indictments.

raxxorrax2• 7 years ago

Which should be legal since the US does breach privacy around the world (with the help of his awfully quite home country).

So I don't see the justification to prosecute him. Of course governmental data of the US isn't protected from non-citizen access. Why should it, these are the rules they themselves set. It is naive to think that governmental actors have an advantage at espionage. On the contrary. The most advantages has anyone without critical secrets.

duxup3• 7 years ago

I think the espionage act topic is worthy of discussion.

The question about the laptop is pretty settled to me. It's against the law to help someone try to break into something like that. I think that is a valid law, doing so is step well outside what a journalist should do, and all of that is regardless if you are successful or not. Also we'll see what he says in court about that, I could have sworn he or his lawyer already noted their lack of success, that sounded like they were talking about actually trying to do it.

I do think in my mind the two topics are tied together, if someone is not behaving as a journalist then I think the context of the charges changes dramatically.

leftyted• 7 years ago

It remains to be seen whether the charges under the Espionage Act stick. They may not and I don't think they should. But it seems a bit breathless to declare these charges a "threat to journalism". Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing.

There's a sharp divide in how people view Assange. Some buy into his hipster-tech-Jesus persona. These people think the rape (read: surreptitious condom removal) allegations were materialized by the US government, somehow overlooking the fact that nearly everyone who has interacted with Assange has a negative opinion of him personally (see - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting).

I see Assange as a tragic figure. Publishing the "Collateral Murder" video was good. But Assange's worldview is basically incoherent. "All information should be open" is a naive position and there's a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia. When you publish everything, you're obviously putting yourself in a position in which you can be used. Further, states are allowed to have secrets for the same reason people are allowed to have secrets. It isn't possible for governments to conduct foreign policy with everything in the open. Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame. I'd contrast Assange with Daniel Ellsberg rather than comparing them as this article does.

That said, I think the US government would have been better off not pursuing him at all. Now that they have him, I hope he just gets a slap on the wrist.

cyphar21• 7 years ago

Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing.

This is an accusation made by the US government, it's not a fact. WikiLeaks accepted leaked documents and published them after verifying they were true. This is basically what journalists do (though they usually write articles that summarise the leaks).

Also, WikiLeaks did redact documents on many ocassions (in some cases even asking the US State Department what information should not be published). Everyone remembers the mostly-unredacted leaks of the war logs, but most people haven't followed up and seen that they did start redacting more things after the backlash. Though they never redacted sources or methods because those things have proven to help people in the past.

mike10010100• 7 years ago

This is an accusation made by the US government, it's not a fact.

Are you claiming the chat logs that show Assange offering assistance cracking passwords are fake?

LMYahooTFY3• 7 years ago

"Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing".

Source?

The DoJ would love for you to testify for them as this is what they accuse him of doing.

""All information should be open" is a naive position"

Relevance?

He also does obviously doesn't believe this as literally as you're interpreting it, demonstrated by his own words and actions such as redacting.

"a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia"

This can be said about every publication ever made by anyone, ever. Even those with known sources.

"Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame."

Source? Relevance?

If I believe your statement is motivated by personal fame, why does it matter?

Can you point to a journalist who is, without a doubt, devoid of desire for fame?

You might view this response as mildly combative, but I'm trying to be succinct.

jtr_47• 7 years ago

What I don't understand is the the following.

1. Julian is not a United States of America Citizen. So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind

2. Julian is a citizen of another country. How do the laws of USA all of a sudden encompass people outside of the USA? Yes, wikileaks did receive "secret" stuff, but the exposure of these events is for the greater good and exposes how the USA is corrupt and "evil." The USA needs to be held accountable for their actions. The USA has no business in other countries, killing, maiming, destroying their homes and lives. Regardless of what happened on 9/11, which I was present on NYC when it happened. Yes, it was horrible, but our own government and their meddling in the affairs of other nations is to blame

Is there some kind of unknown laws of the USA that apply to people and countries not part of the USA (non-citizens and other countries)?

Peace

roywiggins• 7 years ago

The US doesn't care much where you physically are when you commit a crime against the US. For instance, if you conspire to traffic drugs into the US, the US can come after you. It doesn't matter if you're physically in the US or not when you do it.

If an estranged noncitizen parent living abroad conspires to kidnap his children from their custodial parent inside the US, he can be tried for kidnapping by the US. Even if his part of the conspiracy never takes place inside the US. The alternative- just letting him off, due to where he happened to physically be at the time- would be fairly absurd. The jurisdiction he's physically in probably doesn't care, and even if they do, most of the witnesses and all of the victims are physically in the US.

The US can't kidnap him but asking the jurisdiction he is in to extradite him is totally normal. This is what extradition agreements are for, in part.

bbatha• 7 years ago

Personally I believe the charges levied by the US have been trumped up, and even if they were true the offense were minor and this amounts to overzealous prosecution. So putting aside for a second whether the charges against Assange are valid or not. This is the line of reasoning being used:

1) Assange allegedly assisted in hacking US Defense Department computers. The means that he allegedly broke US laws on virtual US soil. They are also alleging that he was a conspirator that directed crimes on US soil via his agent, Manning. If he say hacked a Russian computer and the US was prosecuting him it would be a different story.

2) The US and UK have very strong extradition treaties and will generally extradite with very few questions asked. In most cases the legal systems of the US and UK are trustworthy and compatible enough for this to be a fairly reasonable thing.

Again ignoring the specifics of this case, these general principles of law are generally good. The US, and international community have a strong interest in protecting their assets. If you want to virtually strike at a country in a targeted attack you should be prepared to face the consequences -- sitting in another country while you perform it is not a valid excuse. Imagine a more clear cut case, some Russian hacker group hacks a US bank and steals millions of dollars, that seems reasonable to prosecute right?

sbov• 7 years ago

So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind

Physical presence is an odd requirement. So if I pay people to deliver bombs to people in the USA, but I'm not in the USA, I haven't committed a crime?

harperlee• 7 years ago

Yes, but not in the USA. You did not bomb - you paid for it, in another country that should judge that.

woliveirajr• 7 years ago

Well... Depends. It might not be a crime in the country "X" where you are. It might be a crime in the USA, but country "X" won't extradict you because it doesn't consider it to be a crime. Even if you are a citzen from country "B", where B and USA consider it a crime.

International crimes depend on a lot of factors.

hartator• 7 years ago

Army size always correlates to more diplomatic power. You also have US military bases everywhere in Europe. Not the reverse. Europe relies heavily on US troops for their defense. So if the US perceives Assange as the threat, the rest of EU better does as well! It's that simple.

bufferoverflow• 7 years ago

Ironically, TheGuardian is smearing Jordan Peterson's new free speech platform before it even launched.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-pe...

US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

Related Stories