You Don't Have to Like Assange to Defend Him
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/docu...
Assange can publish whatever he wants* (*according to the US laws that govern freedom of speech, etc.) but as soon as he becomes actively involved in the exfiltration of classified material he is breaking the law.
Otherwise we could run roughshod over any foreigners we wanted.
(Yeah yeah, extraordinary rendition, etc. I know.)
That's the justification for (and purpose of) Guantanamo Bay, that the US can get around respecting (foreign and domestic) prisoners' Constitutional rights and obeying laws against indefinite detainment without trial and torture because it's not "technically" American, but Cuban.
Certain rights apply differently depending on what citizenship you hold. You can be held and deported if you're not a citizen; you have more due process if you have a green card than if you are on a tourist visa. But all of those gradations of rights are in the context of the Constitution.
I’m assuming you’re asking about whether Assange can claim the law violates the guarantees of free speech and a free press. I’m sure his attorneys will make that argument. I’m also sure that the court will rule against him. If an American gave Manning advice on how to crack another user’s password on a classified military system, they wouldn’t get very far claiming “free speech” or “free press.”
Personally, I don’t see any reason that Assange should feel any loyalty to the US, so there is a difference between an American helping an American military intelligence analyst crack computer security and an Australian doing so. On the other hand, if an old friend contacted me and said “I’m in the Ecuadorian military and I need help cracking into a classified computer,” I would assume that my helping them would violate Ecuadorian law.
He's an Australian currently in the UK though. I don't like the global reach of US laws.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/extradition-reque...
This is definitely a one-sided relationship.
You can be sure that the US will never extradite anyone for that at least.
'Everybody does it' argument does not invalidate the claim. I'm not making judgement on what should happen here but...
An Austrailian man was just arrested in the United Kingdom and is to be extridited to the United States for allegations of attempting to aide the circumvention of encryption on a laptop (while located in Sweeden) that was owned by the US government and stolen by (while located in the Afghanistan) a US citizen containing information about the United States government's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The UK signed an extradition agreement with the US of its own accord
3. Extradition is very common. This situation is what extradition treaties are for.
That being said: I hope it's just a few years. That's fair for what he is accused of.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Inve...
Update (no replies yet): I should clarify that I care very little about the legal aspects as there are obviously legal implications, rather I think this is an interesting question from a moral standpoint.
> 7. On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password...
> 25. [...] Assange indicated that he had been trying to crack the password by stating that he had "no luck so far."
It seems to me that essentially the entire indictment discusses what Manning was doing. Is this all they have on Assange? I mean is the only evidence that he helped crack the password that single statement of his? He could have just said that and never done anything.
I mean sure presumably there is more evidence, but this indictment seems pretty thin to me.
They’ll get a chance to amend the indictment before trial.
The indictment doesn't actually have to do that, that's what has to be done to get to the indictment, but the indictment doesn't need to actually recapitulate the evidence that supports it, only the factual allegations that the grand jury found that the evidence supported.
> I mean sure presumably there is more evidence, but this indictment seems pretty thin to me.
All criminal conspiracy legally needs is a agreed common purpose which is itself criminal and a concrete act by any of the participants to advance the common purpose.
Well I hope that they have something more concrete than him saying "no luck so far" because I read that as all of nothing. I make similar statements all the time and it need not mean I've done a thing.
Even with your elucidation, it seems to me that indictment seems to working quite creatively to paint Assange as conspiring with Manning. I presume at least that the British would demand to see the evidence of the conspiracy.
[1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/natio...
[2] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gvy537/the-cia-ha...
People are talking about a hashed password like its something new, but this is not new information at all. The Obama justice department had all the same chat logs - no new evidence has been discovered since then - and knew all about this but decided they couldn't prosecute without endangering press freedom.[1]
So if you don't think this is a major assault on press freedom, you should at least realize you are disagreeing not only with me but literally the Obama justice department which looked at this for years. Why is it that they came to this conclusion and never moved forward with the case, but now the TRUMP administration is pursuing it anyway?
It's not just american journalists that are at risk, but this is meant to send a chilling message to anyone anywhere on earth that you better not report on the US government negatively or else we will have you extradited, prosecuted as a spy, and thrown in solitary.
Anyone cheering on the US government as they try to set a precedent for prosecuting journalists as spies needs to think more carefully about this issue.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia...
> One former law enforcement official said the U.S. government could bring charges against Assange if it discovered a crime, such as evidence that he directly hacked into a U.S. government computer. But the Justice officials said he would almost certainly not be prosecuted for receiving classified material from Manning.
There is zero allegation of hacking. Rather they are saying Manning sent a hashed password and Julian said in the chat he sent it to his team and then it never went anywhere. Calling this hacking is a big stretch.
This article from 2011 shows the Obama justice department knew all about this[1], check out the last two paragraphs which I will post here:
"In the exchange prosecutors showed in the courtroom, Manning appeared to have sent Assange a “hash,” or encrypted, password. Assange said he’d passed it on to members of his team, but the exchange prosecutors showed did not indicate whether WikiLeaks ever actually helped Manning with the password.
That chat could be a critical one for the parallel criminal investigation the Justice Department is pursuing into Assange and WikiLeaks. If Assange gave Manning advice or assistance in breaking into computer systems, that could transform Assange’s role from a mere recipient of secret data to a conspirator in efforts to steal it."
I am curious why you think the Trump administration is pursuing this now whereas the Obama DOJ declined to prosecute sighting the "new york times problem" as described in the previous link.
[1] https://www.politico.com/story/2011/12/defense-manning-was-o...
Assisting with the exfiltration of that data is clearly a different beast. Professional journalists know the difference, and stay clear of it to protect themselves, their employer, and the trust journalists are granted.
Helping to crack a password clearly crosses the line, even if it's minor in the scheme of things, or unsuccessful. There will be endless handwringing here on HN over the precise definition of "assistance", because somehow the tech community cannot handle the ambiguity of non-binary real world situations. Would it be material assistance to let your whistleblower use your USB stick? What if you bought them a coffee on the morning they did the deed? etc... But the inability to precisely define the single tree that makes the forest doesn't stop us from making any "forest or desert?" decisions.
Of course this sets an ugly precedent. To the ignorant, it suddenly becomes far less extraordinary to see a publisher of secrets in jail. The Atlantic is rightly worried here, because who knows how long the courts will still operate independently, considering the current trajectory of other institutions like DoJ?
Time served for having to live in an embassy for the last several years?
You're right, it's illegal, but it just doesn't feel that bad to me. Not even remotely on the level of the problems we face as a country this day. It almost feels petty.
Even if he had been convicted in Sweden he would have been out by now.
He hasn't been charged for anything else "bad" that you think he has done.
So it seems like it would be pretty easy to denounce this extradition, because it specifically relates to the sincere whistleblower "crime".
Al Capone was indicted under charges of tax fraud, though that was not primarily why authorities wanted him. We must consider both consider the justice of those particular charges as well as the justice of general punishment of Capone, whatever the source.
What I mean is that we have to consider both things separately and simultaneously. You're correct that we need to think about if we agree with this particular charge. I'd also say that you have a similar responsibility to say if Assange should be charged for, as you said, "anything else 'bad'" he's done.
If you're referring to the Swedish allegations, keep in mind Assange constantly made himself available to the Swedish prosecutor to answer questions at any time the prosecutor asked: via video conference, in person or otherwise. The prosecutor declined.
To compare that behavior to Al Capone is odd.
But since they can't do that directly they've chosen a different crime to snag him on.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, so I'm not sure how to answer - if you expand I'm happy to respond.
I'm not an expert on Assange or Capone. I invoked the example because I understand that people dislike Assange for reasons related that are unevenly covered by the law. That seemed similar to Capone who, as I understand, operated at a time where little of his actual behavior violated the law (though he was at the top of a violent criminal organization).
The things people dislike Assange for may or may not be narrowly legal - but their feelings towards him will affect how they treat these charges against him.
> The prosecutor declined.
This is a longer discussion, which we can have. Generally, for the Swedish legal system to be able to take action, it must have power over the object of its action. Saying you will "cooperate" as long as you aren't subject to the power of a process which demands power over you seems, to me, like a rhetorical maneuver than genuine effort to engage. His arrest illustrates why he was nervous about leaving the embassy, of course, but doesn't make evasive representations more true.
People were unwilling to testify against Capone due to fear of violent retribution. That's the basis of going after him for tax evasion.
Saying you must have power over someone before you can talk to them gives the lie to the Swedish prosecutor aim being determining the facts of the Ardin case
That the Al Capone thing gets trotted out as an example of reasonable government behavior really only demonstrates how accepting society is of corruption serving popular opinion.
And Assange appears to have committed the crime of conspiring to hack a Department of Defense system.
You're talking about it like they're innocent, but really they just got more attention towards their crimes because they did other things which they were more notorious for.
And frankly, that's always the case. If you want to get away with a crime don't make a name for yourself as being a criminal.
No, that is USG's argument - an argument which has yet to be proven or really even fleshed out. Given its reliance on a tenuous concept of nexus that USG stretches further and further, I think it's tough for it to "appear" to anyone that this spooky action at a distance is immediately criminal - USG's general ability to eventually justify extracting blood notwithstanding.
But back to the specific argument - What GP appears to be advocating is that while considering this possible crime, we should "simultaneously" be thinking of what a general twit Assange is, lest we forget that the real goal is to punish him somehow. That is directly contrary to the rule of law.
That's one hell of a shoehorn.
The US government cannot be trusted to prosecute people who have exposed their war crimes
This is so comical I actually laughed out loud. How did you arrive at this conclusion based on their comment? Walk us through your reasoning.
Is that the real goal? That's the point I'm making, because both directions of reasoning matter. It could be that the charges against Assange are absurd and he should be freed. It could be that the charges are accurate but he should be granted clemency. It could be that he's guilty but not worth it. It could be that he's innocent of these crimes but guilty of things that, for various reasons, sit outside statutes. All of these positions imply stances one should take on the various particulars of the situation and so we should think about them.
> That is directly contrary to the rule of law.
This is exactly how the rule of law is practiced. It's one of the reasons why there are such dramatic racial disparities in the american legal system. It's why people regularly commit felonies without knowing it[1].
I am aware of the idea of law that you're invoking - that a crime is a crime is a crime and that we should speak to the issue at hand and not address the context around the issue. The problem, to me, is that the context around the crime is exactly the thing that produced the crime! The charge was doubtless chosen based on what the government thinks it can prove. If it couldn't prove this, it would have selected another charge.
To refuse to consider the context is to play the governments' game. If the charge is the charge, then go ahead and read the statute - I have no doubt Assange is technically guilty in some way. We are all guilty of felonies in some abstract technical sense.
But - if we do the sensible thing and consider the context, we have to consider both sides of the context - how did we arrive at this charge and what behavior (if any) does this charge ignore? This is what I mean by needing to do the two things simultaneously - you can't pretend Assange isn't arrested while you talk about his actions and you can't pretend his past actions don't exist while you talk about his arrest.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438...
Given that USians overwhelming reaction to Assange is negative thanks to our vibrant state run media, coupled with the tenuousness of the charge - yes I do think that most any attempt to pull wider "context" into the specific legal situation is essentially character assassination.
> The problem, to me, is that the context around the crime is exactly the thing that produced the crime! The charge was doubtless chosen based on what the government thinks it can prove. If it couldn't prove this, it would have selected another charge.
Except a major aspect that defines this situation is that the USG is claiming jurisdiction over a foreign national committing actions wholly on foreign soil. Even if Assange's actions were unquestionably hostile to the United States, and blatantly illegal if done on its soil, claiming jurisdiction over him still relies on purely technical legal reasoning!
So what USG really chose is a charge they can best hang some sort of nexus onto - and it's not really a surprise that the overbroad, overbearing, and draconian CFAA is what they ended up at. It mostly makes sense to use the CFAA to criminally prosecute a foreign actor breaking into US computers because they are still remotely committing actions on US soil, but Assange is essentially being charged in the US for talking to Manning about Manning committing a crime in the US!
Which is why the charge is chilling - because the same reasoning applies to any journalist receiving information from any source. Not because it's illegal for the journalist themselves to mishandle classified information, but because by talking to the source they're conspiring to further the source's own mishandling of classified (/tradesecret) information!
I don't think that it's at all clear that Manning was a “sincere whistleblower”, even if some of the leaked material was in the public interest, so much as a seriously emotionally damaged individual lashing out collaterally and simultaneously seeking external validation in response to signficant personal institutional mistreatment.
No, it doesn't; press freedom is the right to publish, not the right to actively participate in breaches of non-social (e.g., physical or technical) security measures.
> The charges leveled against Assange stem from the 2010 Manning leaks, which were judged to have been in the public interest by some of the world’s most significant and thoughtful news publishers, who ran some of the revelations in their pages.
News publishers don't have any binding authority to decide what is in the public interest; there is no Constitutional prerogative to an institutional press pardon for criminal offenses. Further, this claim is outright dishonest: the decision to publish some of the information as being information whose publication was in the public interest is not a judgement that the leaks themselves were, on balance, in the public interest.
> Assange may be an asshole. Scratch that, Assange is an asshole. But we’re going to have to stand up for him anyway.
That being said, the more I read into the story, the harder and harder it is to defend him.
People are presumed innocent until the facts are known. So it's only afterwards that we should, according to our culture, give up his defense.
Inside the justice system, yes. I am not a part of the justice system, and I have every right to have my own opinion. I'm suspending my personal judgement until I feel I have a better handle on what's happened.
I don't think I agree with this. The legal system decides whether or not an action was legal, not whether or not an action was acceptable in society. The court of public opinion decides whether or not an action was acceptable in society, not whether or not it was legal.
They address two different things, and I think that's proper. You don't really want the legal system deciding social mores, and you also don't really want legality to be determined based on the public's emotional reaction to things.
This isn't quite right. The legal system decides if a person is guilty of committing an illegal act, and if so, what the sentence should be. The system may find that the person did not actually perform the act they were accused of doing, regardless of the legality of that act.
It's probably his best hope. The current charges are thin -- based on one statement he made to manning -- and the feds know this. BUT the reason you never talk to the feds is that it is way, way to easy for them to get you on other charges: purgery (generally the main one if they can't get you for anything else), conspiracy, racketeering, and of course with this one they have a litany of government security charges they can cherry pick as well.
If he doesn't have excellent legal representation (even with) he's in real trouble. His best shot is to fight to not come here in the first place -- if he can make a case that they may bait and switch the charges to national security, and somewhere put the death penalty into play, that could work.
Note that I don't know how it works being that he is actually an Australian citizen -- does the UK care if it's not one of its citizens facing what their courts would consider unfair charges overseas? (which is their standard for denying extradition -- I'm not judging the charges either way)
Perjury (for the benefit of those who were as confused as I was).
It may sound a bit silly but is an honest question.
It's like... if I commit a robbery and you drive the getaway vehicle, I am (the actual robber) deemed innocent and let go, but you still go to prison for being an accomplice. It makes little sense?
> it's like... if I commit a robbery and you drive the getaway vehicle, I am (the actual robber) deemed innocent and let go, but you still go to prison for being an accomplice. It makes little sense?
it could easily be the case that there's enough evidence to show that a robbery occurred and that I drove the getaway car, but not enough to convict you of the robbery itself. the fact that one of the accused in an alleged conspiracy is found not guilty really has no bearing on whether others can still be convicted.
Wikileaks and Assange only believe in radical transparency when it isn't applied to themselves.
Instead, he's been holed up in the embassy of a country that initially had the fortitude to say just that. But since the Equidorian political landscape had shifted, so has the message it has sent. Sadly it shifted to what the Australian government has been doing all along, and has colluded in hanging him out to dry.
Tragically, when he arrives on US soil I suspect he in for a very bad time.
I don't particularly agree with Assange's methodology, but I find the actions of the Australian and UK political landscape utterly deplorable.
Just, as an example:
https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
Here's something I hadn't seen before. I didn't see this on my "morning news" - and I'd really just like to know if this is:
a) true b) if it is, somebody I've employed will step up and defend/explain it.
I really hope you're being facetious
So you can still ensure that illegal acts are made known to the public without revealing intelligence sources and methods.
If you did a college/university degree, if you are a member of some association, if you follow some code of practice and abide by some definition of ethics and values then you are a journalist and a protected entity.
The First Amendment of the US constitution forbids Congress from abridging the freedom of speech and of the press. Although the term "free press" isn't specifically mentioned, if one cannot decide what does and does not qualify as "the press" then everything from espionage to outright falsehood can equally be considered an expression of "the press."
As this is not the case, then "the press" and "the free press" must have some established definition, which means some qualifiers must have been decided upon. And yet it doesn't seem as if the US has fallen prey to wholesale government silencing of critics or censorship of criticism either in the mainstream or alternative press, as a result of such definition.
So while it may be possible that defining "the press" could result in abusing that definition to silence critics, it doesn't appear to be inevitable.
Therefore, it can safely be argued whether or not Wikileaks qualifies as the "free press" without fear of a slippery slope to press censorship in general.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
If the spooks of weren't so damn aggeessive that they spoiled a can't lose trial Ellswood would have been fucked for the Pentagon Papers as there is no public interest defense against the Espionage Act.
To be frank the Espionage act is an unconstitutional relic of past mistakes that should have a stake driven through its heart, head chopped off and stuffed with garlic and the body burned outside in and left in sunlight.
Falsehood /is/ protected. It is a civil matter at very worst. Because if it isn't then you can have prosecutions for "lies" that are really inconvenient facts.
The current jurisprudence /as it should be/ is that the press is an activity and not a position.
This debate totally changed the way I look at Assange. So no, I don't have to defend him.