Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/judge-dodges-legality-...
Without the ability for the press to publicize illegal actions so that voters can remove officials who allow it, the US government can engage in unconstitutional conduct with almost zero oversight by making the illegal conduct classified.
Edit: I guess I should add that a lot of people in the US believe it is good for the US government to have absolute power in the world, because they think it’s okay for “their side” to have absolute power over others. Often I think they associate “our side” to be the side of the “good guys” and thus find our grip on global hegemony acceptable. Except there are no “good guys” who always behave in a fair and even way, that is a childish fantasy used to keep us on board with the serious injustice perpetrated by governments the world over. The US government is responsible for oppression and murder the world over in addition to the good things we might do. We cannot blanket trust any government to behave appropriately in secrecy unless we want to simply abdicate our responsibility for the harm that governments then cause.
And that's probably something that needs to be argued in front of the Supreme Court. It is vital in a democracy that a government can be held accountable. The government should not have a carte blanche to break the law in secret. There has to be some way to address this, and at the moment there clearly isn't.
Manning, Assange and Snowden provided a public service to the American public by showing them what their government was doing.
You're right. We don't and the reason for that is centralization. The way the country was originally designed, an all powerful behemoth of a federal government was never intended to be a thing.
A combination of 2 things has allowed it to happen over time: Federal consolidation in the aftermath of the Civil War and the creation of Federal Reserve.
Those two things set us down the path where we are today and it's why a more decentralized government is advantageous. You can personally influence things that are more local do you. You can get involved in city or county government. You can call your mayor or you councilmen. You can join a school board or run for Sheriff, city/county council. All of those things are possible.
But an individual has almost no power to influence federal policy and when people disagree with federal policy, they have no escape. If you don't like a law in your city, you can work to change it or you can simply move to another city. Same thing with states, even though it's more of a task...but at this level you always have the ability to vote with your feet.
It's not so easy to just leave a country and it's the reason that constitutional amendments are supposed to require 2/3 votes instead of 51%. The country need to be in significant agreement over federal policy...or we will be at each others throats about what is / isn't being imposed on people.
That's where we are now.
Seriously? Name one person making this argument? Perhaps you are just misusing the phrase "absolute power". Typically this is used to refer to the unrestricted power of a monarch or dictator. The US doesn't even have this power within the US. It's a childish fantasy (as you say) to think the US has this "in the world" generally.
We shouldn’t blanket trust anybody of course, but it makes more sense to put your faith in the one advocating for free speech and democracy if you believe in human rights and equality.
It’s really easy to point out where we’ve fucked up, but a lot harder to appreciate the regional conflicts that just plain didn’t happen because of the “big stick” as Teddy Roosevelt would call it.
Just as an aside, I have no idea how I feel about this particular case against Assange.
He doesn’t seem like a great guy, but the “helped Manning hack” charges seem pretty trumped up. I’m a little surprised the justice department is even pursuing it considering how much the current administration loved Wikileaks during the election. Any precedent which hampers the press’s ability to publish whistle blown information is, of course, a step back.
The problem of secrecy in government is that the situation is not always clear. If indeed there is some classified information that shouldn't be exposed, that is extremely serious and can't just be aired like a tabloid news story. There is no simple way to keep the public informed of classified information. It's likely that the most reasonable safeguard is to have elected representatives with a strong moral code to vet the situation and act to protect their constituents.
If you think that's a ridiculous statement, then consider that every major television network around the world covers our political elections here in the US and the focus is always voter turnout and who we vote for. The only reason for that is: we have all the power.
Of course, if you don't like who gets elected all the time, perhaps you need to consider why your candidates never win because it seems far fewer people agree with your selections. Why is that?
There is oversight, just probably not the kind you want.
There's numerous congressional committees which all have oversight of every aspect of the executive branch if they so choose to ask for it. All of which are elected officials. From the Gang of 8 to the Ways and Means committee. They also leak information to the press like a sieve.
There's an inspector general in many of the agencies which can independently investigate criminal activity within the agency.
There's the FBI and the DOJ which can investigate criminal activities whether they involve classified matter or not.
Then there's the FISA court, which oversees the use of secret government surveillance.
Then as a last resort, there are leakers, which leak information to journalists (e.g. Daniel Ellsburg and the Washington Post)
It's more than likely if the government is doing something shady, word will get out.
You are implicitly blaming the projects and the developers, while the rest of the world spends billions on developing software and networks without having any regard for privacy.
No low latency system will be anonymous in the face of a global passive adversary. Tor does not claim to protect against a global passive adversary.
nothing is IMO. it's a function of raising the cost so it becomes too prohibitive for an adversary to track you. the only way to be "truly" anonymous online is not to go online (or to be truly anonymous irl is to stop being alive).
We should all realize that there are much worse outcomes than the current society we live in, and lots of them increase dramatically in likelihood when you remove the ability of society to protect itself from people who intend to create catastrophe. Truly anonymous communication is a catastrophe-enabler.
"Could be worse" is not a compelling argument.
> lots of them increase dramatically in likelihood when you remove the ability of society to protect itself from people who intend to create catastrophe.
I'm curious what you could possibly be thinking of, because to me it seems obvious that the exact opposite is true.
This idea that all communication must be "accountable" to a central authority is very modern, and very very dystopian.
If bad guys can conspire in secret, I consider that an acceptable sacrifice in the name of liberty. Just like ensuring there is no surveillance inside of bathrooms (but what if terrorists assemble their bombs there!).
We elect representatives who are able to review the classified materials and act on our behalf.
That's how the system works. If you think governments shouldn't have secrets you are in the minority.
Some information, like the location of and launch codes for nuclear weapons, names of sources in hostile nations, etc absolutely should be secret.
I don't think that because "governments need secrets" we should set up a system where the government can classify something, rendering it unable to be reviewed by the courts, as described in the article I linked to.
Ooohhh, that's quite on point actually. Guess what Assange disclosed plenty of, at great risk to these sources' safety? He is quite far from any sort of genuine journalistic ethics, and I'm not going to complain if he were to be held responsibile for these actions.
(And yes, he used to claim, with no basis in reality whatsoever, that these sources were self-serving for the most part and thus had it coming for them...or something, honestly it's hard to even guess at a coherent argument from his unhinged claims. By now though, I think we all can agree that this was BS. He has garnered an extensive track record of optimizing his "leaks" for shock value while minimizing effort, and disclosing sources' identity does fit the pattern.)
The current government of Ecuador has not only handed him over, however, but has even handed over his personal belongings in the embassy to the US government. So much for protecting him from political persecution!
So you must give credit to the prior government, not the current one.
(A) Ecuador received a $4.2B loan from the US-dominated IMF, which was approved around the same time Assange was dragged out of the embassy, and
(B) President Moreno was caught up in the INA Papers scandal where many personal photos, messages, and documents were published, and Moreno accused Assange of involvement shortly before evicting Assange.
Change of Government, new person is power was always anti-assange. Government changed, Assange out.
Assange violated the terms of his asylum.
The reality is that Latin American governments often make deceptive and untrue claims to support activities that benefit them.
In this case, Ecuador made several unsubstantiated claims ostensibly designed to humiliate Assange, which fall short of any reasonable attempt to prove that Assange violated the terms of his asylum.
He would have probably been better off pulling a Snowden and disappearing into Hong Kong for a while...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-inks-...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ecuador-jilted-assange-as-it-so...
Political asylum is not normally revoked because someone is a bad house guest, and one former embassy employee has gone on the record stating that the new Ecuadorian government did its best to make Assange's life in the embassy living hell, and that he was actually a courteous guest. It is in the interest of the Ecuadorian government to defame Assange and to make excuses for their sudden cooperation with American authorities.
There's video.
Meeting with Manafort about Assange was one of the first things Moreno did when he was in power.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/manafort-tried-to-make-deal-...
The world would be a much better place if people would learn to distinguish between “a person with political power said so” and actual evidence.
That is a straight up attack on legitimacy. And legitimacy is one of a few basic political powers. That makes it a big deal. (Others are having an army, ownership of the means of production, etc...)
All that means is the propaganda worked on you.
In contrast, Lenin Moreno (current president of Ecuador) was the political succesor of Rafael Correa (previous president) and was in line with Correa's policies... until after being elected. He then turned around many of Correa's policies and is seen as a traitor by the latter.
This is more as if Hillary had won (ok, I know, not a perfect analogy!) and afterwards tore down everything Obama stood for.
This is exactly what he said would happen if he would give in to the Swedish/UK authorities.
Many may not remember, but Assange also said that the Swedish charges were manufactured precisely so he can be 1) discredited and 2) eventually extradited to U.S. once in custody.
That result was entirely his choice. He chose to go to the UK. That's not where you go if you're fearful of the US picking you up.
He chose to leave Sweden where he wouldn't likely be extradited to the US as Sweden considers espionage a political crime and does not extradite people for political crimes ....
Every single person on the entire planet can be charged with dozens of things by a u.s. prosecutor with enough time and incentive. That's how the laws are designed. If they want you, they _will_ get you.
The UK doesn't from their soil. There's good reason to think they don't have a issue with extraordinary rendition in the global sense; I think they just don't like the idea of a former colony subverting their legal system. But all of that means that it's more likely for Assange to stay in the legal system in the UK rather than being black bagged.
Granted, that's a very human thing to do. He's not alone... politicians all the time.
Back in the day when there was a wikileaks facebook page, if you followed up asking about "hey you said you'd release X" after they talked something up and did nothing ... they'd just delete your comment.
This statement is not accurate. There were not, and are not, any charges in Sweden against Assange. There is only an investigation.
Stuff could happen in Ecuador too. Sweeden still seems like a far better bet, legally, and visibility wise.
Everyone thought he would be charged with a number of crimes if he ever left the embassy.
[1] We're still trying to extradite Polanski, even though he's been a fugitive for decades. The US legal system has patience, largely because everything takes so long anyways.
Even if guilty and they can prove it, a Swedish jail is probably nicer than a US one and I doubt he would go down for longer for the alleged crimes in Sweden than for those in the US. What was it - sex without a condom? Versus the espionage in the US?
Everyone was claiming that there were no secret charges, and we were a conspiracy theorist if we thought so.
This went on for years.
What I thought, and still think, is that the idea that Assange would be executed is absurd. I also thought that the idea of Assange being whisked away to "black site" is absurd.
There is evidence (here-say) that he fired a rifle during a military confrontation and dug a trench, and according to the guards he said some nasty things to them during his extra-judicial detention, but I don’t see any charges enumerating the laws he broke:
At the end of the day, the conspiracy theorists were right.
Regardless of all the lies that the US government made, they were always going to make an extradiction request the moment Assange stepped out of the embassy.
So for 6 of the 7 years he was in there, the "you all are crazy conspiracy people" people were correct, and only for the last year have the crazy conspiracy people been correct.
Previous speculation about USG extraditing Assange was solidly grounded in looking at underlying motivations and capabilities. Claiming that there would be no extradition was essentially implying that Assange couldn't be charged under US law, presumably due to some combination of the first amendment and jurisdictional issues. To anybody that pays attention to how USG actually operates, this was at best naive. Now the reality has finally been demonstrated.
This tendency to malign a non-official narrative as "crazy" for lack of a smoking gun demonstrates exactly why leakers are so vital. The conversation of 2012 would have looked much different if "he's hiding in the embassy simply to escape a rape charge" had been a completely nonsensical position. But as it was, it provided a basis for FUD while the "Assange bad" drums pushed people into thinking that it's right for something bad to happen to him.
The claim, all along, was that as soon as he is out of the embassy that the US will bring out their espionage charges.
And he just got out of the embassy,and guess what happened? He recieved espionage charges. Exactly as predicted.
Whether or not they were provably right at the time is not the issue. They were right. They could read between the lines, and they were right.
While the Foreign Office may insist that we will never extradite if there is a possibility of the death penalty, the Home Office on the other hand can take it upon themselves to waive that requirement and have apparently done so recently in another case, so it is possible and the UK is quite prepared to say that it isn't, while doing it - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067
>>> Yes, that is my belief. I don't know what he believes.
>> Well, you seem to be implying that he is being dishonest about his fear of being extradited. As if he is doing this so he doesn't have to answer to the charges in Sweden. Based on your statement, you clearly do believe that he isn't actually worried about ending up in US custody.
> I do think he's being dishonest, yes. He has access to skilled lawyers, and his concern about extradition to the US is irrational: it's easier to extradite him where he is.
I don't think that there were many people arguing that the US didn't want him but it looks like the US was willing to wait for him to wear out his welcome with the Ecuadorans and completely skip over the Swedes. I wonder had he never gotten to the Ecuadorean embassy if the US would have raised a competing claim with Sweden.
One side was arguing he was hiding from a rape charge, the other side argued he was hiding from a possible extradition order. Both of those have to do with Assange's likely motivation and are to some degree independent of the facts on the ground - as you point out, the facts of one argument are so far unprovable.
The hiding-from-rape argument has been pretty much debunked by the 7 year timeframe. I don't know what Assange was up for in Sweden, but it beggars belief that he would get more than 7 years jail for a non-violent crime. A fine and community service, maybe. Most aspects of the case must be almost evidence-free and would be a struggle to prove if he says 'didn't happen that way'.
Whatever the truth, he was clearly hiding from a greater threat than the charges the Swedes were bringing against him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
Either way, extradition is a very different thing.
He really believe Sweden would extradite him, imo.
That's a bizarre statement.
Most took issue with the hyperbole that was attached to what he would be charged with, "droned" or otherwise dealt with, not if he would or wouldn't be charged with anything.
This is one of those classic conspiracy theory type situations where it is "oh look people said this wasn't a thing and here it is" and it's way not what anyone else said either... and that doesn't prove anything.
The arguments generally present on here was that:
1) He'd already been in custody in the UK for some time, so if the US wanted him, and the UK was willing to hand him over, then that would have already taken place, but had not.
2) Under EU rules, if the UK has extradited him to Sweden, and then the US asked for him, both Sweden and the UK would have had to agree to hand him over, making him strictly safer in Sweden than in the UK.
3) Much of Assange and his supporters arguments focused on the risk of being charged with a capital crime, but under EU rules neither the UK nor Sweden could have handed him over to face a capital charge.
4) Much of the remainder of Assange and his supporters arguments focused on the risk of going to Sweden, but he was already in the UK, and the UK is famously willing to cooperate with the US. The UK was not a safe place for Assange to be!
All four points have been vindicated by events so far. What Assange ended up doing was finding a way to avoid going to Sweden and instead hang out in the UK for so long that eventually the US asked, and the UK handed him over, just as expected.
Had Assange quietly gone to Sweden to contest the charges against him, would things have worked out better for him? We'll never know now, but it's very plausible.
> Over the years, many observers claimed he was delusional in this regard.
In any case, the specific claims he made remain, at best, unsubstantiated. He wasn't extradited from Sweden, and he isn't facing a capital charge.
Pardoning Manning also doesn't quite with the idea of the (previous) US admin being too invested in punishing Wikileaks.
That still shows a less than friendly attitude to whistleblowers and a hypocritical double standard of holding those in power to a far lower standard. It stinks of cynical "we just want the bad PR to go away but don't want to say she did the right thing" so just commuting to validate the court ruling. Meanwhile Petreaus we should assert that the ruling class are seperate and should be sancrosanct - pardon!
There was some golden age that is always a generation ago where journalists did great things, but, they weren't journalists, they were whistleblowers that happened to work for the media.
If you work for the corporate media then this 'golden age' journalism is just not possible. You would be sacked if you wrote the truth or went further than the press releases on the newswire for content.
Did they? I thought it was commonly held he would face such charges. The allegations around delusion were in respect of his ability to evade them for the rest of his life.
Here is tptacek saying that Assagne was dishonest and irrational when claiming to fear extradition to America: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11043329
Go through his comment history and survey what he's been saying about Assange over the years. It's pretty egregious.
Since he was forced out of the embassy into the arms of UK police, and never planned to go to Sweden, I don't think we'll ever know if he would have been extradited from Sweden (or on route to Sweden) or not.
Tptacek was making a point that's a bit more nuanced than you seem to give credit for. He hasn't been "proven wrong" by the UK allowing US to extradite Assange.
Let's be real here, he never would have made it to Sweden. One way or another, Assange's fear that leaving the embassy would end in him in an American courtroom was neither irrational nor dishonest.
I have no idea why the poster above you is choosing to attack him specifically, though.
A common theme for a while was that Assange was just attention seeking and/or using the excuse of extradition to the US as a way to avoid facing justice in Sweden.
I think he should be in court while the accusers plead their case. Ellsberg beat the government in court afterall.
The only alternative is to abolish the courts and legal system and let people get a free pass since the system is not perfect.
International law is incredibly complicated. It's up to the countries involved to make the decision in addition to whether or not extradition makes sense. You don't have to agree with that but once again- what is your alternative?
In China it's against the law to publicly criticise the government. Should the US extradite people to China to face the penalties for violating that law?
Depends. But sometimes yes. "Criminal activity" is often times country specific.
USA
China
Russia
and their respective allies / blocs ?
> ASSANGE encouraged sources to (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information; (ii) provide that protected information to WikiLeaks for public dissemination; and (iii) continue the pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public.
The main charge here is that Assange actively encouraged people to break the law. Since he wasn't a US citizen and had not signed a non-disclosure agreement with the United States, many of the laws protecting classified information do not apply to him directly.
The first section of the indictment describes the various ways in which Assange and/or Wikileaks said, more or less, "gee, it sure would be nice if someone got these classified documents for us." The next section, titled "B. Chelsea Manning Responded to ASSANGE'S Solicitation and Stole Classified Documents from the United States", explains how Assange's solicitation lead directly to the criminal acts committed by Manning.
Finally, we have a section labeled "C. ASSANGE Encouraged Manning to Continue Her Theft of Classified Documents and Agreed to Help Her Crack a Password Hash to a Military Computer". This described how Assange provided Chelsea Manning with tools allowing her to circumvent passwords and other protections on classified computers.
So this isn't as simple as "a journalist received classified information and is being prosecuted for it." This indictment lays out a very specific crime, which is (Assange) directly encouraging and enabling another individual (Manning) to commit a crime (Espionage) on his behalf.
You can argue about the validity of these charges, even the validity of the classifications levels assigned to some of the material given to Assange, but we should be clear about exactly what is being claimed by the government, as well.
The legal theory being advanced here would basically outlaw investigative journalism into the activities of the US government, even by foreign journalists.
By analogy, an employee at a bank isn't a criminal for spinning the dial on the vault. They are a bank employee, they have permission to work on-site with the bank's money, be in the vault, and operate their teller station which has the vault's money. it may be against the bank's regulation to open the vault without authorization, but a guy on the outside asking a bank employee to try a vault combo isn't breaking the law if the bank employee was previously authorized to access it. The crime is taking the green papers from the vault and transporting them off bank premises.
The fact that some claim that it is or should be illegal to tell someone to collect evidence of uninvestigated and unpunished war crimes for publication for the edification of the public shows you just how far down we’ve slipped down the slope.
Journalists that have ethical standards wouldn't do this.
Then all journalists who publish classified information - which are most investigative journalists of any note who cover government - have no ethical standards.
Nothing about that interpretation is new, thus plenty of high-profile journalists, and journalistic NGO [0] have already responded to that particular "charge" back in April. Like Glenn Greenwald pointing out that "massaging sources" is a major part of investigative journalistic work [1].
[0] https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-calls-uk-protect-role-journalist...
[1] https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indi...
This isn't different than the Chinese govt demanding us citizens be surrendered who break Chinese social laws.
A lot of news orgs, and individual reporters, have explicitly asked for information about specific topics. Yes, usually not by explicitly mentioning it being classified, but for plenty topics that's basically implied.
By my read the indictment doesn't formulate any limiting principles on the more broad charges that could be levied against many reporters.
> Finally, we have a section labeled "C. ASSANGE Encouraged Manning to Continue Her Theft of Classified Documents and Agreed to Help Her Crack a Password Hash to a Military Computer". This described how Assange provided Chelsea Manning with tools allowing her to circumvent passwords and other protections on classified computers.
Which is why the previous version, which had only this charge, was much less heavily criticized.
Why make charges that could destroy journalism when you could charge with something that doesn't? It's hard to understand, unless of course the press is "the enemy of the people".
I don't think you could manage the same legal challenge with just the latter. Often charges describe all sorts of things that themselves aren't illegal.
If I give tools and a robbery checklist to someone and tell them to rob a bank, surely I'm still able to be charged and probably for a higher crime right? At least that's how these charges seem to me. I guess I don't see how it's invalid.
I do however see how this could set a dangerous precedent should the courts allow loose interpretation of the outcome to mean "reporting leaked information is illegal"
Those databases are illegal for non-government employees to access. If Manning had secret clearance for database {A, B, and C} but not D, it's an internal IT violation between him (at the time he was male) and his boss. If you or I (presuming you're not a gov employee) tried it, we don't have clearance and therefore it would be a crime, aka hacking.
However, is there any legitimate alternative method for a whistleblower to expose the US government of warcrimes, as WikiLeaks did? It seems quite unfair for a government to murder innocent civilians and then protect itself by putting the evidence behind a password.
*Edit: and it was done after Manning had handed over everything she could access with her own account. At least that's what the charge is in the initial indictment.
And about "gee, it sure would be nice if someone got these classified documents for us." As long as the POTUS is not charged for asking the exact same things to Russians publicly, it would be a shame that a foreign person be charged in US for that.
I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them.
However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws?
I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law?
Law is, after all, what gets executed, and debating whether it's right or wrong is a luxury you don't have when it's executed on you.
cf. https://www.wsj.com/articles/famous-rich-powerful-missing-15...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
What's at question here is: Given Assange was never in the US, how has he committed a crime in the US and the answer is that the US has a funny idea jurisdiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradit...
Only if China can exert it's influence in the US. And it can, to a certain extent. It's not unheard of for China to demand that a citizen return home by threatening legal action against his or her family. If China had the same influence over the US as the US does over most of the European countries, then yes, you would be subject to Chinese law if they care enough to pursue it.
Laws aren't magic. They're enforced by power. If any country has the power to enforce their own laws in foreign countries, they'll do it if it's important enough to them. In this case, the upside is definitely big enough.
I'd be more worried and angry if I were a citizen of a European country. This isn't the first time this decade the US has violated the sovereignty of a European country.
> I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them.
> However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws?
> I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law?
No but I wouldn't travel to China in that case.
We're seeing the US flex its international power to get revenge rather than justice, and it's disconcerting to see how many "free" nations are allowing it to happen.
My guess is that hidden on page 1050 (or whatever) of the charges, the meat of the matter will be some sort of Swiss Army knife of Justice Department power involving a kind of conspiracy, meeting with C. Manning, or whatever. Truth is, they can put anyone in prison any time they like.
Thank goodness the intelligence nomenklatura in this country isn't joined at the hip with the Googles, Facebooks, and AT&Ts of the world. Then where would we be?
The difference between WikiLeaks and the New York Times is that WikiLeaks would not have kept Bush's warrantless wiretapping program secret until after the 2004 election - at the request of the Bush administration.
I don't think they were successful (legally that likely doesn't matter), and we'll how much actually counts as "help".
So with your analogy you obtain information release it, and then help someone try to hack a computer to access more .... that's where we are at this point.
It's a difference. Generally journalists don't help their sources hack into anything.
I suspect if you did China would be happy to take you if they could extradite you.
1: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566...
It is not clear he is a journalist as traditional journalism is pretty far away from what Wikileaks has done.
It is also still not legal for journalists to direct people to steal classified information. Publishing it is not necessarily the crime, being involved in the acquisition is. This is why nobody is talking about charging or extraditing Glen Greenwald (published Snowden's materials). Assange was directly involved in getting the materials and exposed himself pretty easily to espionage charges.
If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you?
What you're describing is exactly what investigative journalists do all the time: they encourage sources to leak classified information, which they then publish.
> If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you?
Espionage is when a government uses covert means to obtain information on a foreign government for its own gain. When an independent organization obtains and publishes government secrets that it deems to be in the public interest, that's normally called "journalism."
I think Assange's self-imprisonment should also be considered in any punishment, there's no doubt that it took a toll on his mental and physical well-being.
How do we know that he was murdered when he was anonymous? Am I missing something?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb...
EAW's are (apparently) different to the normal extradition process, and is more streamlined and does not involve diplomatic channels. I've heard Swedish law commentators say that the EAW would be honoured before any non-EU extradition, if this was a normal case.
If he eventually get's to Sweden before the US, it will be very interesting to see if Sweden will turn him over. I would guess so, but perhaps that's just my teenage bitterness from the The Piratebay trial still lingering...
Given the previous EAW was withdrawn due to the impossibility of serving it, it is relatively likely any new EAW will be considered practically identical to the original one and therefore the date of the original warrant used to grant precedence. There's also the matter of statute of limitations: the Swedish offences (one? two? I forget how many of the original four have passed the limit) need to go to court in the relatively near future, whereas the US offences have no limit as I understand it; this furthers the argument that the Swedish request should be given precedence.
As for whether he gets to Sweden before the US, remember that he can then challenge the extradition to the US in both Swedish and English courts, and Sweden considers espionage a political crime for which it won't extradite. (Okay, very hypothetically extraordinary rendition has happened from Sweden with some level of Swedish consent before, but for such a thing to be done to such a high profile person would be… truly extraordinary.)
People on HN: Of course the government aren't spying on citizens. What are you? Some kind of tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theory nutjob?
[After Snowden]
People on HN: Well obviously the government were spying on everyone. Were you really that naïve?
[Before Assange Indictment]
People on HN: That Assange guy is a completely delusional whack-job. How can anyone be so stupid to believe the UK/Sweden would cooperate with the US in taking him down permanently?
[After Assange Indictment]
[crickets (for now at least)]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
Edit: it's also not true that the UK doesn't deport who shouldn't be deported. Just a random search result: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/09/revealed-fiv...
This never made any sense to me, and I brought it up any time it was mentioned. It is the nature of spooks to spy on everybody. The pretence that somehow magically their spooks don't spy on US citizens never passed the sniff test.
Think about it, how could they possibly _tell_ if someone is actually a citizen? They've got no reliable way to do that, and obviously the grey areas are _exactly_ where you should look for bad guys, so in practice _obviously_ they will spy on citizens.
Thousands of people comment on hacker news, including people who said the opposite of what you attribute to HN. It's unwise to to treat the people that you are arguing with on Tuesday as if they are are the same people you are arguing with on Monday.
HN like reality is comprised of people with many different viewpoints.
It is true those things could influence whether charges are filed, or pardons granted. IIRC, it’s the legal difference between an affirmative defense and simply being innocent.
That was all greatly overstated
https://web.archive.org/web/20101129044151/https://www.mccla...
In addition he published the password for a GPG-encrypted archive of documents that were shared via BitTorrent in a book and claimed that WikiLeaks was given plenty of notice to fix the issue -- not understanding that you cannot change the password of an existing file that was already distributed and probably in the hands of the NSA.
Citation Needed?
Also, were those people involved in those [war crimes]?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange...
I'm not sure the Julian Assange hill is the one I'd die on if I was worried about first amendment protection of the press.
[DOJ Indictment: 1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566...
A political offense means something like being charged with a crime for offending the "good name" of the prime minister (see, e.g., Turkey or India for examples).
But it is in Sweden. That fact is conveniently forgotten when people were and continue to push the narrative of "Assange shouldn't be extradited to Sweden because they'll hand him over to the US".
Obviously, Assange was more worried about the rape charges--he waited until the statute of limitations on filing charges expired before he agreed to talk to the investigators.
Had they tried to give someone help someone " (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information" ... they likely would be in a lot of trouble. Such as "hey man here's how to hack Muller's computer" and so forth (that's a very blunt example but it would qualify).
That isn't a line that gets crossed by reporters very often in the US. It's hard to talk about in here as so few people want to talk about the actual charges, but that step in assisting (or trying to) is the key to these charges.
If enough insiders keep doing it and they all mostly agree with each other, and they are the only ones in charge of initiating these prosecutions, obviously they aren't going to prosecute themselves for breaking the rules in the same manner they went after relative outsiders such as Manning and Snowden. And they obviously would turn a blind eye to reporters they are cozy with, compared to how deeply they looked into Assange.
On the other hand it's hard to really draw that line when it comes to intent for sure without shutting down all and any leaks, and leaks are an important part of democracy.
Every government has to find a way to deal with them, and hopefully not cross the ever moving line.
The hacking thing though, I think that's a legitimate line. How much Assange did or did at all, courts get to decide that.
Leaks are just such a difficult area to manage.
But yeah, government employees who leak classified information are charged all the time. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6024842/Assange-s...
You could spend all day arguing whether Assange is a journalist/publisher, or whether he's still just Mendax getting his rocks off. You could argue about Manning and Snowden's methods. You could argue about every other whistleblower's way of coming forward. But you can't deny that each of these people exposed serious crimes perpetrated by the US government. Spying on citizens, torture, war crimes, etc.
Unfortunately, with Theresa May's resignation today (effective 7 June) the way the wind blows is that Boris Johnson will become the new leader of the Tory party and prime minister of the UK. I can't imagine that the US extradition request will be resisted for very long after that.
Interstingly, unless the UK finds a way to extradite Assange to two nations at once, this will rather leave the Swedish prosecutor who asked for it first with a bit of an embarassing turn of events to deal with. I really don't see the UK (especially the UK under BoJo) giving priority to a rape trial in Sweden over an espionage trial in the US. One of those is much more photogenic.
Accept it will happen and become better from it.
They don't amount to much. They confirm he has access to a lawyer. They confirm his state of health. They can't get him out of Belmarsh, or prevent the extradition.
No? That's for the people of the country to do, not foreign powers. There has never in history been a government that hasn't fallen to its own people. There also isn't an example of US or Western imperialist forces 'destabilizing' that has lead to better conditions for the people of that country. Libya has open slave trade right now while people die with arm floaties crossing the Mediterranean.
I’m not surprised to see new charges filed. But these charges seem very likely to backfire. By overcharging, the US may well cause the UK to balk. I have to assume that someone expects to negotiate a shorter list of charges, so they started with a crazy opening offer.
That may not be absolute, we seemingly have agreed to waive it elsewhere - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067
I know that previous non-binding promises (which were then ignored; i.e., people were executed) caused diplomatic trouble, so I still expect the US to make a binding promise.
I think you're severely underestimating the level of coordination that has gone into this.
The current government of the UK will do what the US wants.
However, coordinating with the judge without Assange’s lawyers would be highly inappropriate. It wouldn’t surprise me if the appropriate government minister offered legal help in drafting the court documents, but I don’t think it would go beyond that.
Now you know why 'lamestream' media is so mistrusted.
The US government has kept threatening all national security whistleblowers with the Espionage Act so they take the 5-10 years in prison plea deals for the past couple of decades. Considering it's very unlikely Assange will take a plea deal on this one, I hope he gets to win, for all future national security whistleblowers' sake.
(Posting unverified documents without making any attempts to verify them is not a journalistic activity.)
EDIT: downvotes don't change reality...Courts have analyzed what makes someone a journalist for purposes of these laws, and at a minimum, whether investigation/research or discourse (i.e., writing or video reporting) is involved, they all agree that analysis of the investigated/researched material is required. Assange put no effort into analyzing the materials he received; he simply published everything (except the Trump stuff).
Seems like main stream media in the US proved the last few years that they were not journalistic by not making any attempt to verify the Steele Dossier.
And actually there aren't any parts that have been categorically disproven.
> Courts have analyzed what makes someone a journalist for purposes of these laws, and at a minimum, whether investigation/research or discourse (i.e., writing or video reporting) is involved, they all agree that analysis of the investigated/researched material is required.
Assuming this is true, doesn't that prove he analyzed it and decided what he thought relevant to be published? You may not like the metric he used in his analysis, but have the courts ever up held standards as to what metrics used count?
The independent judiciary is a real thing, and it really matters.
Pretending judges are somehow magically independent and immune to political influences and pressures is silly.
With that being said I'm not sure I agree 100% with the parent comment you were replying to.
The supreme court isn't an "independent judiciary". They are part of the power structure. The supreme court is a political court filled with political appointees. It's why appointments to the supreme court are political fiascos.
Somehow I don't think assange is going to get the same treatment as the nytimes since he doesn't have the backing of political or media bigshots that the nytimes does.
Assange is the enemy of both the republican and democratic parties. He is the enemy of the nytimes, wapo and all establishment media. Assange will get no more a fair trial in the US than a ugyhur would get in a chinese court.
Just like the Pentagon Papers ruling was a sure thing long before Nixon decided to go after the NYTimes. Assange's fate is sealed.
Trump government lost quite a few very high profile cases just in the last few days.
Not when both sides agree they shouldn't lose.
If he was just being extradited because "hurr-durr, muh classified info" or "hurr-dur, muh DNC emails" it would be a toss up but because both sides of the government want him screwed for various reasons he will be screwed.
Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years, but it was commuted after 7.
The nature of espionage has certainly changed over the decades. We can't allow free-lance operatives (more in line, I think, with his self image) to conduct espionage against us. He's a legitimate target.
IIRC (...and maybe I don't) it was easy to run across allegations (which seemed to make sense) of his ideological leanings...I think related to hangers-on of the cult his mother got the family involved in.
That and his frequent appearances on Russian media at the time (8+ years ago). People forget, and however it happens, information falls into the memory hole.