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Comment by onedognight | Hacker News Reader

Assange is accused of working with Manning to crack a Linux password hash of a government computer so Manning could gain access. It’s not about publishing any data obtained; he was, it seems, not a passive receiver.

https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/docu...

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This is the critical difference. If the NY Times stole the Pentagon Papers themselves, they committed a crime regardless of whether or not they choose to publish the material. If Daniel Ellsberg steals the Pentagon Papers and the Times and Washington Post choose to publish them as part of their reporting on the Vietnam War, they are not somehow made accessories to his crime through publication.

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.

I understand the basis for the charges: Assange supposedly committed a crime against the US and so we claim jurisdiction, but does he have Constitutional rights, not just the ones extending from treaties and agreements?

I believe ANYONE facing a US court gets US constitutional rights.

Otherwise we could run roughshod over any foreigners we wanted.

(Yeah yeah, extraordinary rendition, etc. I know.)

>Otherwise we could run roughshod over any foreigners we wanted.

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.

That was what the Bush administration tried to do, but they were unsuccessful. The Supreme Court ruled that it was still unconstitutional, and the prisoners had the same rights under the US Constitution.

And yet they are still there...

i think that's important but how exactly is that specified? Does the US Constitution to apply to anyone on US soil?

In the 50 states + DC + incorporated territories, the entire US Constitution applies to everyone. There are unincorporated territories, where things are a bit fuzzier.

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.

If an Australian tourist visits the US, they can be arrested as part of a police investigation the same way an American can be, and they have Constitutional rights such the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

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.

> *according to the US laws that govern freedom of speech, etc.

He's an Australian currently in the UK though. I don't like the global reach of US laws.

Well, he allegedly attempted to hack into US computers, right? If a US citizen hacked into Australian servers, they could be extradited from the UK as well.

True. If the hack was related to divulging accurate but classified information detailing Australia's recent invasion and topple of two sovereign nations, against recommendation by the majority of the UN, it would likely play out different.

The US isn't special in this regard. Many nations have extradition treaties with each other and they are often invoked in cases of espionage. To paint that as US law "reaching the globe" is a bit facetious; everyone is entangled in everyone else's law—especially when it comes to espionage.

I couldn't find any good comparative statistics, but I hear about people being extradited to the US a lot more than from, giving the appearance of a rather one-sided relationship. The treaties may be the same, but they don't seem to be used the same.

According to the UK's Home Office, the US requests more extraditions of UK citizens than vice versa, but that might be due to the relative population sizes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/extradition-reque...

Your link doesn't list the reason for extradition, doing some research on this issue, I see parental kidnapping generates a fair number of extradition requests.

That’s partially because the US is a espionage target to a far greater extent than most other countries.

Well, following Snowden's revelations we learned that NSA was spying on European countries' citizens and administrations, the US president (Obama at the time) just said that spying on allies was a perfectly natural thing.

This is definitely a one-sided relationship.

You can be sure that the US will never extradite anyone for that at least.

>To paint that as US law "reaching the globe" is a bit facetious

'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.

1. He's charged with conspiring with an American to hack into an American network.

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 indictment is pretty interesting. It is short and pretty clear, but I'm still having trouble understanding what the indictment actually alleges he did.

> 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.

The indictment just has to establish enough to arrest the person. And many prosecutors work hard to make sure it contains no more than enough to meet that standard.

They’ll get a chance to amend the indictment before trial.

> The indictment just has to establish enough to arrest the person.

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.

Thank you for the correction.

Indictments are summaries of the allegations for which the grand jury has found probable cause based on evidence. They don't need to contain any evidence themselves, as their purpose isn't to prove charges but to state them.

> 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.

> 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.

Sure, but would you be equally damning of the actions of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI? [1] We are talking about breaking into a physical office in that case and I admit that it is different in that they mailed the documents anonymously to journalists, but let us not pretend that things are as black and white as active vs passive – would it have been okay if Manning and Assange had provided the documents to another media outlet?

[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.

I think it's important to note that if the Citizen's Commission members were identified within the 5 years after the theft, they would have been tried and jailed. That's the risk you take. They kept their silence about their identities for over 40 years.

Certainly, but would it have been morally (not legally) correct to have had them tried and jailed? Personally, I would have said no, in that their actions were clearly in the interest of the greater public and uncovered illegal actions on the part of the state. This is a difficult question though; I have not made up my mind entirely as to where the boundary lies.

I think it would have been morally acceptable to have them tried and jailed, and morally acceptable for them to be pardoned afterwards.

This isn't about Assange trying to crack a password this is about punishing Assange for journalistic work he did. Since such journalism is not a crime in itself they have found some other minor crime which they can make a federal case out of.

Yes, this is another example of a dual-track justice system. Note how CIA officers aren't prosecuted for hacking the Senate [1, 2], but an activist is indicted for allegedly failing to decrypt some files.

[1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/natio...

[2] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gvy537/the-cia-ha...

At the end of the day they are going to send him away for life. The reason being that he did in no way apologize for his actions or feel any remorse. I am sure they have a litany of ways of doing that. This is just one of them. I am sure by the time this goes to trial there will be many more charges or if he beats one charge they will try him on something else. You can't escape the long arm of the US law.

This is the key thing. You cannot escape law by "being right". If you have to be punished for some reason, they will find a reason. Show me the man, and all that.

That being said: I hope it's just a few years. That's fair for what he is accused of.

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