Julian Assange Charged in 18-Count Indictment For WikiLeaks Disclosures (go.com) 246
Julian Assange was charged Thursday in an 18-count superseding indictment for his role in orchestrating the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosures, described by the U.S. government as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States." From a report: According to the Justice Department, the new charges from a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia allege that "Assange's actions risked serious harm to United States national security to the benefit of our adversaries." According to the DOJ announcement, Assange faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each charge with the exception of one charge related to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange was previously indicted in April on a single-count conspiracy to commit computer intrusion charge for his role in Chelsea Manning's disclosure of classified materials made public by WikiLeaks in 2010, which the government has called "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
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are they going to charge other foreign nationals, like Putin, Xi, and Kim for similar?
Why similar? How about charging the leader in charge of Iran for committing treason against the US by aiding an enemy (The enemy being the country they are in charge of).
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are they going to charge other foreign nationals, like Putin, Xi, and Kim for similar?
Actually, they've already charged several Russians related to the 2016 election tampering. So yeah, it's a thing.
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Those charges were for actions within US jurisdiction - funding rallies, protests, servers, etc. Publishing documents on a foreign server is a very different thing, and outside US jurisdiction. The only legitimate comparison with the Assange case is the single conspiracy charge, and there's little evidence he actively assisted in spying.
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Makes sense to me -- the media, and their comrades in the political ruling class have spent the past 2.5 years telling us Putin had his GeekSquad cyberattack America to get Trump elected, and Putin is conspiring with Trump to... something something...
If you are ignorant on the specifics of why Trump, and his various organisations are being investigated, whose fault is that?
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Well ignoring for the moment that Russia doesn't have an extradition treaty with the United States, that Putin is essentially the leader of Russia and wouldn't be extradited even if they had a treaty, you would also need the Justice Department to lay charges against Putin. It is important to remember at this point that the Justice Department reports directory to Doanld Trump. The same Donald Trump who denies the existence of Russian interference during the election.
So, yes, in theory, Putin should be char
It's all fun and games... (Score:3)
As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance... (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance to the US (not a citizen) and isn't present within the US, did Assange (or anyone outside of the US) have an obligation not to distribute US secrets given to him by others?
Technically, under the Atomic Energy Act, all information pertaining to nuclear weapons is "born classified." Should we be able to charge anyone outside the US who writes a book on (say) uranium enrichment techniques?
Re:As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance.. (Score:4, Informative)
You want to read a nice joke about nuclear industry disclosures?
In January 1991 a model of the TOPAZ-II was exhibited at a scientific symposium in Albuquerque, generating interest in the US in the possible purchase of it and the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization arranged to buy two Topaz-2 reactors from Russia for a total of $13 million, planning to use the reactors to improve US models. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that US law prohibited the "export" of such a device to the Soviet Union - even though it was Soviet-made and only a model rather than an actual reactor. It took a month before the situation was resolved by a new NRC ruling and the model returned to Russia.
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According to a conversation rranscript, Assange was in posession of a Linux hashed passwords file and attemped to crack it, unsuccessfully.
Re:As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance.. (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance to the US (not a citizen) and isn't present within the US, did Assange (or anyone outside of the US) have an obligation not to distribute US secrets given to him by others?
It is not illegal for anyone to receive and publishing classified information unless that individual is a US national and has security clearance. The act of publishing the secrets is not what Assange is being charged with. He's receiving conspiracy charges for working with Manning to acquire the secrets either because he offered aid or encouraged Manning to commit a crime.
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Still doesn't matter.
Julian Assange never was in the US. US law does not apply.
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Those are the old charges, not the new ones.
See Greenwald or Scahill on Twitter. Even NYT and WashPo are expressing mild concern for their profession.
Re:As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance.. (Score:4, Informative)
You can read the indictment [justice.gov] yourself if you'd like but there's not much different between the initial indictment story and the full 18 indictments.
Conspiracy to Obtain, Receive, and Disclose National Defense Information
or
Unauthorized Obtaining of National Defense Information
or
Unauthorized Disclosure of National Defense Information
or
Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion
The unauthorized disclosure charge is what they're concerned about but within those it alleges that Assange
willfully and unlawfully caused and attempted to cause such materials to be communicated, delivered, and transmitted to persons not entitled to receive them.
Meaning, if you encourage or conspire with someone to obtain classified information, they are going to charge you. That's levels of difference compared to stumbling upon classified information or someone you have no contact with giving you the documents.
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Yeah, I think extradition from the UK wouldn't happen for unauthorised obtaining or disclosure.
The conspiracy charge however may hold.
It's an interesting one though. I think you can only extradite for crimes that are also illegal in the UK (which is why the Swedish rape accusation was assessed against UK law) but I don't know whether it's legal to conspire to commit espionage in a foreign country.
Probably not, the UK tends to prefer its citizens not to privately breach the sovereignty of other nations.
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It will be interesting to watch the outcome. Unfortunately, you only get to see instances like this when there's a lightning rod involved so it can be difficult to talk about the scenario without biases getting introduced.
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It is not illegal for anyone to receive and publishing classified information unless that individual is a US national and has security clearance.
False.
18 USC 793 (a) makes it a crime for anyone to enter US facilities to steal secret information.
18 USC 793 (b) makes it a crime for anyone to copy secret information.
18 USC 793 (c) makes it a crime for anyone to receive secret information.
18 USC 793 (d) actually applies only to people who legitimately have secrets, and makes it a crime for them to intentionally leak secrets, or to keep personal copies.
18 USC 793 (e) makes it a crime for anyone with unauthorized access to secrets to transmit them o
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The code you're citing is much more nuanced than that. You may have been given a certain type of educated regarding handling classified information if you had clearance but the training you receive for it only needs to be sufficient to ensure that your behavior is in compliance with the law. If the code was as simple as you laid it out then complying with section e would necessitate that you admit to violating section c.
(c) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, receives or obtains or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain from any person, or from any source whatever, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note, of anything connected with the national defense, knowing or having reason to believe, at the time he receives or obtains, or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain it, that it has been or will be obtained, taken, made, or disposed of by any person contrary to the provisions of this chapter; or
The purpose to which it references is in section A.
(a) Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation
Receiving classified information when
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Receiving classified information when you don't have clearance is not a crime. What may be a crime is what you do with it after the fact and the intent behind what you're doing with it.
Close. Whether or not you have a clearance doesn't matter. What matters is your (a) belief in whether or not the information may be damaging to the United States and (b) your intent in obtaining, copying, receiving, or transmitting it, or conspiring to obtain, copy, receive or transmit it.
In another post [slashdot.org] I pointed out that Assange may have a defense in arguing that he believed that obtaining and disclosing the information was to the benefit of the citizens of the United States. If his intention was to
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Whether or not you have a clearance doesn't matter.
I should have said whether or not you have a clearance doesn't matter for this statute. Other laws may apply. In particular members of the military are subject to the UCMJ and its penalties. Civilians with clearance may have other restrictions as well (I don't know... when I held a Top Secret clearance, it was as a member of the military).
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I agree with what you say. It definitely all hinges on what you believed or intended to do with the information. The problem for Assange is that the release from Manning was obviously curated and prosecutors could certainly argue that by editing and publishing the "Collateral Murder" video he had intent to harm the United States. Had it been a flat dump and people had to sift through everything then the intent to harm the US or aid foreign nations would be more difficult to show.
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Extradition Treaties (Score:3)
It literally doesn't matter unless Americans are going to drastically change who they vote into office. Otherwise we'll continue to use our military and economic might to do stuff like this. Compared to what we routinely do South of the Border A
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As someone who legally doesn't owe allegiance to the US (not a citizen) and isn't present within the US, did Assange (or anyone outside of the US) have an obligation not to distribute US secrets given to him by others?
Perhaps not with regard to distribution, but he certainly had legal obligations that he failed to uphold in this matter.
He's being charged with participating in the conspiracy to exfiltrate classified data. While publishing information to which you were a passive recipient is one thing (e.g. newspapers publishing Snowden's leaks), engaging in actions against a country in order to gain access to their secrets is a very different matter. Countries agree to respect each other's sovereignty and their citizens h
The story was different when Assange seeked asylum (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody claimed that he was being paranoid. Now that he's out, the story changes around, the U.S. puts up a big charge and the UK will just deliver the political prisoner because the U.S. says so. Of course, this was all paranoia without a basis in reality as long as he was granted asylym.
And nobody even bothers acting surprised that the storyline is now getting swapped out.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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The complaint that he was paranoid was his refusal to be extradited to Sweden due to it being some kind of US plot to nab him there rather than the anti-American, would never accept a US extradition request, *checks notes* United Kingdom.
You do remember that the Swedish authorities kidnapped some people and handed them over to the US authorities to be tortured, right? At least the UK has a record of actually having some sort of legal process i place.
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We know Britain didn't... how?
There was never any evidence that the UK was involved.
was there ever any serious chance of that happening with a high profile character who is not a member of a terror group like Assange?
Not a member of a terror group? Sure. The people kidnapped and tortured were not members of terror groups. Not high profile but...
It's not as if cooperation with such a rendition isn't highly illegal in both countries.
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That's interesting language on your part, and I'm wondering now if you're actually intentionally being misleading.
Arrest generally implies some sort of legality. This was entirely extra legal kidnap.
The people kidnapped and tortured as part of rendition were kidnapped and tortured as part the CIA's counter terrorism program.
I'm not denying that it was done under the guise of fighting terrorism. However the US has a bit of a record of torturing people because of terrorism then letting them go when it turns
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I'm brave enough to defend the rule of law. If Assange conspired to break the law then why shouldn't he face justice?
At least Manning has the integrity to stand up and face the consequences.
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He was being paranoid. Not knowing the history and not knowing the differences is why you are confused. Case in point: Notice the extradition request to the UK and not to Sweden? What were you numpties saying previously? The only reason that there's a case to extradite to Sweden is so he can be extradited to the USA since the UK won't do it?
You're right, the story changes, but it's not those claiming he was paranoid that are changing it.
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The UK might extradite him to the USA. However if they do there will be limitations set on what the USA can charge him with and what sentences he can be given. I suspect the charges of disseminating classified information will be ones that they cannot prosecute.
Now possession is 9/10 of the law and the UK could not stop the USA violating those agreements. However should they do so the USA will have extreme difficulty extraditing anyone to the US ever again.
Re: The story was different when Assange seeked as (Score:2)
I never claimed that he was paranoid. In fact I stood on his side even when stupied Swedish floozies tried to metoo him.
Ironically, my whole life drive against all kind of mainstream bullshit brainwashing started in 9th grade when our Konsomol leader started to give it to every boner in town. Naturally, she hit a hard wall when she got gonorrhea and had to sport freshly made iodine mask on her neck in school.
Finally public slut shaming, well deserved, reached "adults" stage and they kicked her our from her
Well, that's embarrassing ... (Score:2, Troll)
... Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq [youtube.com]
Year: 2010
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The killings turned out to be justified. It was a combat team with an AK and an RPG.
..and two reporters, and two children that got shot, and people providing a medical emergency response.
Oh, and was it an RPG or is that just US defence arse covering? I do not trust the US armed forces on this one.
The killings turned out to be blatant murder. The intentional shooting of unarmed civilians that could be seen to be unarmed and were posing no threat.
You may consider that justified but I don't.
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The OP was modded down, which means it will get little exposure.
Notice that my only contribution was the date.
What, precisely, is the intent of the down-mod?
It's the American loss of respect for its own actions. The US and those bloodthirsty soldiers and the entire culture behind power against unarmed civilians amounts to nothing more than sadistic murder of innocent victims.
It's the laughing and sneering by professional game players. Human beings are trash. "If they didn't want two girls injured, they shou
Woosh! (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the comments. So many ill-informed motherfuckers. I've followed Wikileaks and Assange when they first surfaced.
Because I was fascinated, I followed every tidbit released from any source available for all these years.
The US flubbed the dub in so many ways. Manning, Snowden, Winner ...
Appreciate how the custodians of data were off smoking a goddam cigarette while Manning, for instance, took a Lady Gaga CD in, erased that and walked off with the fucking store. She was upset at the atrocities [youtube.com] she was seeing. Going the whistle blower route was not possible. As the link shows, the US military is out of its goddam mind and, in the view of any decent human being, are terrorists.
It's so easy and convenient for Americans to rationalize that video just as they rationalize and ignore the dark truth of slavery, the bombing of innocent civilians in Japan -- TWICE and internment of Japanese-looking Americans, without due cause and lying about body-count in Vietnam.
Those things are a part of American history and should be elevated in the national discussion to the same level that vanity regarding major achievements, like going to the Moon enjoy.
--
The Wikileaks and Assange story is not without its warts.
When I first covered Wikileaks, they had a blind drop, a repository that guaranteed that they could not identify the source. They shared the stolen information with responsible journalists who used professional judgement regarding what to release and what to redact within published material to protect vulnerable people and entities.
Years later, Assange and Wikileaks disappeared from public view and donations declined. Assange is an attention whore of major degree who vacated his self-identified passive roles as spokesperson, then publisher, then journalist in a clever attempt to don the shield of "freedom of the press."
He got cocky.
Wikileaks abandoned the walled garden, sand-boxed simple repository and went into hunt mode to stir up some relevancy. That activism, an effort to gain donations, removed the umbrella of editorial protections.
--
Meanwhile, the US really wants to piss all over Assange in revenge and they need Manning to turn witness. She's got immunity, but only for a certain, bounded, scope of charges.
She committed many more crimes than the US charged her with. Most of those other violations were not accounted for because the US would have to drag out evidence that it was not proud of. See video link I dropped earlier.
Manning started all this because she was concerned about how the US talks about human rights, but NIMBY. She does not want to support the government that did not support her. Also, she knows goddam well the scorched-earth anti-Obama authoritarian would love to trap her if she testifies about things out of bounds regarding her previous conviction, as payback for her commutation. Her immunity does not extend to other matters.
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I don't trust the US to be ethical about anything because history does not support that lie. Iraq is an oil war (we got nothing) and Afghanistan is a revenge war (that we are not winning) against proxies for terrorists from Saudi Arabia (allies)."
The soldiers in the video demonstrate the mentality of America that's been the norm since at least the Vietnam War.
Frankly, I don't care how the Assange/US/Manning cluster fuck turns out, but I did order lots of popcorn.
America commemorates Pearl Harbor, but she doesn't have a day of mourning for victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Why would the US mourn the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Japan doesn't mourn those killed at Pearl Harbor, or in Korea, or China, or the Philippines. In fact, lots of Japanese citizens haven't even heard of the Nanjing massacre. The US is a lot more respectable by comparison. I learned about the atomic bombings at school. I even learned about the Japanese internment camps. Neither of those are atrocities on the same level as what Japan has committed, yet the American education system freely admits to A
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the bombing of innocent civilians in Japan -- TWICE
Why single out those two instances? The Allies carpet bombed German and Japanese cities on a regular basis, and it was not uncommon to drop more than a kiloton of ammunition on such raids. The effects (in number of dead and maimed, and square km of total devastation) were similar too. Total war was waged by both sides.
I'm no fan of Assange (Score:3)
Assange is a foreign national operating in foreign countries, and has no real claim of loyalty to the US or a duty to properly handle US classified information, but yet they are trying to charge him with Espionage Act violations for publishing classified information. No one who hasn't been working for the US government who accepted legal restrictions on handling classified material has ever been successfully prosecuted for this sort of thing, much less a foreigner. This brings up serious First Amendment issues as well, since this isn't the first time that the US government has tried and failed to go after publishers of secrets, with the Pentagon Papers being one of the most notable instances.
This reeks of the Trump administration going after one of the least sympathetic figures to his political opponents in order to try to establish a precedent and power to let him go after his real political enemies in the press. Remember that he regularly uses the rhetoric of "fake news" and the press being the enemy of the people, and probably no president is safe with this sort of power, especially not him.
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Assange is a foreign national operating in foreign countries, and has no real claim of loyalty to the US or a duty to properly handle US classified information
The law doesn't restrict itself only to people with a claim of loyalty or a duty to handle US classified information.
No one who hasn't been working for the US government who accepted legal restrictions on handling classified material has ever been successfully prosecuted for this sort of thing, much less a foreigner. This brings up serious First Amendment issues as well, since this isn't the first time that the US government has tried and failed to go after publishers of secrets, with the Pentagon Papers being one of the most notable instances.
True. My reading (IANAL) of the text of the law supports the legitimacy of the indictments. However, the constitutionality of the law can be called into question.
Also, I do see one defense for Assange in the law (besides the constitutional questions): Intent. Everything in the law predicates the crimes on the person having reason to believe that the information is harmful to the United
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That's my opinion, as well.
I will not defend Julian Assange, the man. I will not defend Wikileaks, the organization. I will not defend publishing material that puts lives at risk, the act.
I will defend the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, and free speech is literally the first and foremost among them.
If it were just about hacking a password - as was the case a few days ago - then I would fully support Assange's prosecution, and considering the extreme risk of damage if that password (or the informatio
Urgent National Security Issue? (Score:2)
If this was such a pressing national security issue, why has it taken almost a decade to formulate the charges?
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That's why it's not treason. He is charged with spying, which he freely admits to. It doesn't matter where he came from, foriegn spies get convicted all the time.
Re:One slight problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic every person in every country is at all times bound to every law in every other country... including the contradictory laws. You are only bound to the laws of your own jurisdiction.
Of course a country is entitled to try to enforce something else if they their hands on you, might makes right.
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Well, it depends, if you are from one country and break the law while in another, you absolutely are subject to that countries laws, if you leave that country before they prosecute you are subject to extradition. Their argument is he was performing an intrusion on a server on US soil and is therefore subject to extradition.
One dicey bit here is if a digital presence constitutes a physical one, and that's probably determined by the extradition treaty.
Ultimately the dumbass probably would have gotten awa
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By your logic every person in every country is at all times bound to every law in every other country... including the contradictory laws.
Funny thing is, this is an apt description of how the world worked before we had international agreements and the UN.
You are only bound to the laws of your own jurisdiction.
Things get tricky when you viewed as being part of multinational crime. In theory you are correct but you have to have a country that is willing to go to bat and protect you.
Of course a country is entitled to try to enforce something else if they their hands on you, might makes right.
Ultimately, this is correct but actions have ramifications. However, if your own country is fine with it then there are no ramifications.
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By your logic every person in every country is at all times bound to every law in every other country... including the contradictory laws. You are only bound to the laws of your own jurisdiction.
Of course a country is entitled to try to enforce something else if they their hands on you, might makes right.
This is somewhat of a USA special. The "long arm statute". A *lot* of things seem to have US courts trying to assert juristiction in foreign countries (And some of them are absurd. A US judge trying to put an injunction against a poacher being pursued in australian waters was particularly mind boggling).
Thats not to say they are the only ones that do this. Many countries now have laws against participating in terrorism or child sex abuse abroad, but the US seems to try this on a LOT of laws.
With that said,
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Well, yes. That's why there are extradition treaties. And why countries can flat out say 'Nope, not going to extradite for that'.
extradition and judicial illegitimacy (Score:2)
What I don't understand is why any other country is willing to extradite people to America. We are the new Soviet Union. Our judicial system is a disgrace to our country and an affront to the very idea of justice. World's largest gulag, guilty until proven innocent, torture, coerced false confessions everywhere, institutionalized false testimony, etc.
Why are supposedly-civilized European countries willing to cooperate with our illegitimate kangaroo courts? Would they likewise extradite to Saudi Arabia? To
Re:One slight problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange is not an agent of any country, he also isn't subject to US law since he still wasn't in US jurisdiction. Further, even if he were subject to US jurisdiction as a journalist he is protected by the first amendment.
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As I understand it, that's just wrong. You can be subject to U.S. law if you commit a crime in any U.S. territory (this applies to all countries, not just the U.S.). Since Assange is being charged with conspiracy and the Americans say they have evidence that he did not just receive information from Manning, but helped to direct the hacking and theft of confidential documents, Assange may have exposed himself to legal repercussions.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there is a legal distinctio
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I'm not delusional, but you are. It doesn't matter whether the intelligence community wants Assange dead or not, he doesn't get charged unless Attorney General William Barr approves it and Barr takes his orders directly from Trump. Clearly, Trump and Barr want Assange in prison.
Also, you're a brain dead moron if you think the intelligence community doesn't take orders from Trump. He's the president, they may not like him, but they will obey any non-criminal orders that he gives. Stop being a stooge for
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Well, we that have read your posts over the years know you are delusional.
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Fun fact: Finnish companies must obey certain Finnish laws when operating anywhere in the EU.
The current issue is about a gin manufacturer. In Finland, it's illegal to advertise strong alcoholic drinks (over 22% alcohol by volume). By some twisted interpretation of this law, the company is prohibited from advertising in EU countries where this would be otherwise OK. Drink makers from other EU countries get an unfair advantage.
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/bu... [helsinkitimes.fi]
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There are many who think "journalist" should have no privilege the average person doesn't get. That it derives from basic freedoms of speech and the press (the mass production of speech for distribution.)
Anybody can engage in that, and thus suffers those protections. Thej government can't yank it away from you by claiming you aren't a "journalist".
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Nobody gave Assange information that was "classified" in the jurisdictions that Assange is subject to.
Assange is a prisoner of conscience in the UK, and is waiting to be handled to the power whose war crimes he exposed.
It is like having someone deported into the Soviet Union from Austria 60 years ago for getting Soviet "secrets" out.
Ridiculous "charges" that only stand because of corruption and power plays in what used to be called "the free world".
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Nobody gave Assange information that was "classified" in the jurisdictions that Assange is subject to.
That's actually not up to you (or me) to decide. From what I know that seems likely however if the accusations of providing help to crack computer security are true there are many examples of that being a crime cross borders.
Assange is a prisoner of conscience in the UK, and is waiting to be handled to the power whose war crimes he exposed.
Only an absolute idiot would make that claim. Assange is a prisoner for knowingly, willingly, violating the law of the UK and the UK can not let anyone do that without being punished as it would make the UK a laughingstock internationally, encourage others to violate the same law and al
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Assange is a prisoner of conscience in the UK
No, Assange is a fucking idiot that stupidly broke UK law, was given a fair trial and found guilty. He's a prisoner because of the gravity of the crime he committed.
is waiting to be handled to the power whose war crimes he exposed
He'll be given the opportunity to challenge any extradition, including challenges to the legality of the extradition and the potential treatment he'll receive if extradited.
Ridiculous "charges" that only stand because of corruption and power plays in what used to be called "the free world".
If they're ridiculous charges then he'll be able to defend them in a court of law.
Just what the fuck do you want, immunity to prosecution for any and all crimes? Try educatin
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You do when it comes to secrets, the USA can go fuck itself with it's secrets they are not the problem of people living outside the US. The US is basically claiming it is illegal to foreigners to report it's crimes outside of the US. What are you some kind of corrupt imperialist toddler, screaming kill, kill, kill.
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This is the big problem with all these charges. He has no allegiance to the US, he has never held a Security Clearance in the US. He has never signed a Non-disclosure agreement with the US. And Classified information, being property and product of the US Government is not subject to copyright.
Thus they have no grounds to prosecute him. It's not a crime for s
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The various sections of the Espionage act all state that they apply to someone entrusted with sensitive information.
I think you need to read the law.
Looking through the indictments, I see that all but count 18 are for violations of USC !8 793 [cornell.edu].
In count 1, Assange is indicted for violation of (g):
So if Assang
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offs, here, you take a reading test:
An affidavit unsealed Monday outlining the case against Assange said he conspired with Manning when they discussed working together to crack a password “related to two computers with access to classified national security information.” More specifically, the password belonged to a user called FTP (not to be confused with an FTP server) on two Windows computers that Manning could access from a base in Iraq, the government said.
Re: One slight problem.... you can't read? (Score:4, Interesting)
If he wasn't a sociopath and had a moral compass
You know him personally, AC? Otherwise how could you possibly know that? Seems to me that he probably does have a moral compass if he risked jail time to help release important information to the world. What he lacked was self-preservation. He should have stayed more anonymous.
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There's no way he considered that he might be caught by USA and risk jail time. It wasn't a consideration, he likely never accepted that as a premise.
As you said, do you know him personally? Can you say for certain, regardless of comments after the fact, that he considered this at all, at the time?
Sure he used anonymous tech when possible, but did he believe that would shield him from potential conviction?
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Not a problem. Assange isn't being charged because he published the information, but because he (conspired to) illegally obtain it.
The 1st Amendment protects journalists (in the US, and US publications. If WikiLeaks is not based in the US, and is not a US publication, one could argue that the 1A does not apply to it - but I digress) from being prosecuted for publishing information. If a "journalist" (however one chooses to define journalist) receives unsolicited information from any source, s/he is allowed
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No, but the 1st does prevent Congress from writing laws that abridge speech, laws such as making some information classified, with criminal penalties for speaking or publishing such info.
Perhaps I missed it, but as far as I know, there hasn't been any amendments that allow Congress to put people in prison for publishing stuff that the government wants to keep secret from its employers.
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You should be aware that there was a constitutional challenge [wikipedia.org] to the law that first enabled classification in 1919 and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Espionage Act of 1917 [wikipedia.org] did not violated the free speech rights of the people convicted under it's rules.
According to the Wikipedia page, it hasn't been contested before the Supreme Court again since 1919. So there you go, a hundred years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government didn't need a constitutional amendment to do that.
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While not aware of that particular case, and thanks for the link, I am aware of some of the other decisions that court made in changing your Constitution and it seems that with the right court, any part of the Constitution can be nullified. Doesn't make it right.
Re: One slight problem.... (Score:2)
6 out of 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights have been defacto abrogated. The old drunken aristocrats on the Supreme Kangaroo Court have demonstrated again and again that they have no interest in protecting the rights of the people.
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The basis for upholding the Espionage act is that it is in the interest of the Nation to be able to protect sensitive information. And that to do so it must first notify those who will be entrusted with this information that it is sensitive
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The espionage act couches each violation under the proviso that it applies to an individual entrusted with protecting sensitive information.
This is false, as I detailed in https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
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Of course there are limits to rights and exceptions such as the espionage act are required. The problem is that it is unconstitutional as your Constitution says in plain English that Congress can't pass a law like that. The correct fix is to amend the Constitution to make it legal, something that should be easy to do if it is really required. Instead you get the courts into the habit of nullifying various parts of the Constitution, which can be a slippery slope. Just look at some of the rulings from that Su
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He is in the UK, that is practically the same thing when it comes to something like this.
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Technically he WAS in Ecuador at one point but that really doesn't matter because he IS in the UK.
Re:I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, it was shitting in the potted plants that did it.
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Re:I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Good propaganda has truth elements. They DID have video of him sucking at skateboarding like a goon. That made him look bad. Hygiene questionable at times, sure. Cats can stink up an untended litterbox, he was an ass...
But notice, it was not until he exposed ECUADOR'S GOVERNMENT doing shady things that he was no longer welcome. This is long after he'd been found to have hacked FROM THE EMBASSY into foreign govt's....
He was in full rebellion mode, he obeyed no master. He bit the hand. He broke the rules in their house and then exposed his host as a criminal. They were taking ENORMOUS shit for him, for years...
He wasn't a dummy, but that was dumb or he meant to have this outcome. Maybe he got bored. A cell is as good as another. At least now he gets an hour outside to run around per day, medical treatment...
Maybe he meant for this to happen so he could control his own narrative at a critical time in US politics? Who knows.
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But notice, it was not until he exposed ECUADOR'S GOVERNMENT doing shady things that he was no longer welcome.
Except that's not the timeline. He stopped being welcome long before that, right around the time of an Ecuadorian election where a previously hostile towards the USA president lost to a president elect that promised to improve elections with the USA.
He hasn't been welcome for a long time and I'm surprised they didn't kick him out long before he released the INA papers.
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So basically, shat in the potted plants.
So metaphorically shat in the potted plants.
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Metaphorically, why yes, that's it
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I'll keep reposting this until you stop abusing moderation to try to bury it. It is a valid and even insightful comment.
Re: I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:5, Informative)
Two different things.
The sex without a condom thing is why Sweden wants to extradite Assange: https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]
This is actually unrelated to why the United States is indicting Assange.
Re: I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:5, Insightful)
The REAL thing to bring back to light, is that the US made a big show of saying they did not want to indict Assange, when he was petitioning against sweden's extradition attempts.
But lookie lookie-- He's out of the embassy, and wham, instant indictment.
Of course, the prior song and dance routine they were singing about prosecuting him and seeking extradition gets exactly zero coverage.
Re: I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a refresher for people that forgot.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
"The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting U.S. news organizations and journalists, according to U.S. officials."
Hmmmmmmmmm...
Re: I guess it wasn't all about sex w/o a condom? (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the President changed and the new President replaced the Justice Department leadership since then. That statement could have been true in 2013 (that they wouldn't bring charges then), and no longer true in 2019 because different people are in charge now.
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At least one of the charges does not rely on him having aided Manning, and is just for publishing classified info. This charge will probably go to the Supreme Court and, hopefully, get invalidated.
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I'm not a fan of Assange at all, but this is troubling to me. I heard a news report this morning and one thing stood out. A government official was asked why the First Amendment wouldn't protect the publication of classified materials the same as it protects journalists and the official's response was that Assange isn't a journalist. Now this may be true, but since when does the government decide who is and isn't a journalist. Would the Trump administration get to decide that anyone working for the New York
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The sex without a condom thing is why Sweden wants to extradite Assange
Is it?
It's the official reason given. But it appears that the actual interest in the case is less about finding the truth (Assange offered all kinds of cooperation provided he can stay in the embassy or receives guarantees of no extradiction to the US) but in getting him into custody with no strings attached.
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Hard to get excited about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hard to get much excited about "materials made public by WikiLeaks in 2010, which the government has called 'one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States' when the government, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, insurance companies, credit card companies, banks, etc are ALL-IN on compromising private information from all of us wee citizens.
At least in WikiLeaks' case, the compromised information was ostensibly obtained for our benefit, while most (all?) of these other organizations are compromising our data for THEIR benefit, power and profit.
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They should figure out how to tie Greenwald into this mess, since he orchestrated the whole debacle and continues to work to undermine US democracy
The only ones working to undermine US democracy is the incumbent political masters of the US government.
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I doubt that Trump would want to expend his political capital on the toxic Assange. Assange has no friends in the American political spectrum. The normally bellicose republicans and the members of intelligence community view him with enemity, and always wanted him tried in the US, while the dems hate him for the role wikileaks played in releasing stolen DNC emails.