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Comment by pie_hacker | Hacker News Reader

I have frequently seen the argument that Assange should be incarcerated because he is dis-likeable. Thankfully, that is not a crime in the U.S.

It seems that the federal government is trying to prosecute Assange for obtaining classified information from a source, a practice that is common among investigative journalists. (The details, I suppose, are in exactly how he obtained that information from the source). This seems to me to be clearly protected under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A democracy that prosecutes civillians who obtain secret information from sources for the purpose of disseminating said information to the public will likely not remain a democracy for long.

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That's not what they're trying to prosecute him for. They're prosecuting him for conspiracy to break into DoD computers. That's kind of similar, but it's not the same thing.

> They're prosecuting him for conspiracy to break into DoD computers.

So for doing source research.

I suspect that if someone did source research by breaking the security of your computer, you would want them prosecuted, too. Journalists can't be persecuted for what they write, but they're not above the law.

Persecuting journalists for what they write is becoming more and more common.

"[Reporters Without Borders] is also still troubled by the arrest of journalists during #Blacklivesmatter protests in Baltimore and Minneapolis."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/475017281...

I have to remember that one if I ever feel like burgling someone’s house. “Ah yes yer honor, I did try to break in for research purposes!”

No, for conspiracy to break into DoD computers.

This actually seems like great news for journalists. The fact that this is the only charge implies that prosecutors have decided that wikileaks’ core activity of publishing classified information obtained by others was actually legal.

The fact that assisting someone to break into a DoD computer turns out to be illegal probably shouldn’t surprise anyone. If someone asked for your help breaking into a DoD computer would you say “oh sure, that sounds like a perfectly legal thing that can’t possibly get me into trouble”?

I wouldn't underestimate the US. They could be laying this nice, comfy-looking trap to ease the extradition process from UK. Then once on US soil, the real charges are unveiled.

> So for doing source research.

Sure, in the same sense that the same description could apply to torturing someone with relevant knowledge.

Freedom of the press is the right to publish, not an exemption from all criminal law so long as the object of the crime is acquisition of material for publication.

You're correct, but it's not immediately clear to me what it means to be part of such a conspiracy.

Would simply receiving classified information from Chelsea Manning count? (Probably not, I would guess.)

What about receiving classified information and then remarking "Wow, this is great stuff! I'm going to pass this information on to prominent news organizations through my website called Wikileaks. You don't have more that you could send me, do you?" Would this count as conspiracy if his remark lead to Manning obtaining more information in an illegal manner? It seems that something along these lines may have happened.

It seems to me that Assange should only be prosecuted if he broke into DoD computers himself. It doesn't appear that such an event occurred. I believe that discourse between a journalist and a source (or any two civillians, for that matter) is protected by the 1st Amendment. Thus, encouraging Manning to hack government computers, or even describing to her how to hack government computers[1], should both be protected by the 1st Amendment.

[1] Perhaps this opinion is controversial. Allow me to lay out an example:

Source: "I've sent you all the info I have! Everything else is password-protected." Reporter: "The password isn't 'password123', is it?" Source: "Hey, that worked! Let me send you some more stuff to help with your expose."

In this case, or even if the reporter suggested something more technically advanced like "Hey, look up sql injection on Wikipedia," I believe that the reporter's speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. (The source's activities are almost certainly illegal, but that doesn't answer the question of whether they should be prosecuted for them).

> It seems that the federal government is trying to prosecute Assange for obtaining classified information from a source

No, they are prosecuting him for conspiring with Manning to gain access to classified material to which Manning did not have lawful access.

Conspiracy to commit a crime involves two or more people agreeing to a common purpose, which purpose involves a crime, and at least one of those people taking at least one overt act to advance toward acheiving the criminal purpose. (Note they the overt act can be by any member of the conspiracy, and all of them.can be charged.)

No, he’s being prosecuted for working with Manning to break into government computers, including trying to crack a password. That is not protected journalistic activity.

it may be what they are prosecuting him but they sending a very direct message to all the press at the same time. as in, like we have read with many other cases, the government can make any charge they want to get you. you might walk that fine line perfect but it doesn't matter when the people who hold the law in the backpocket can create new lines and stretch them as needed.

what people like assange, snowden, and manning, did, along with organizations like wikileaks, is take the muffled humor everyone joked about knowing their governments were up to no good and put it out in the open. sadly we need people and organizations like this because no matter how much we claim to be free we truly never are.

are there better ways to do what has been done? probably, but it is no less likely that better ways will simply be portrayed as needed to get the same legal outcome.

seeing that they are so narrow in their prosecution they are probably hoping to make it swift but I suspect as the weeks roll by there will be many more people standing behind assange. not necessarily for him but what his actions represented and accomplished.

> it may be what they are prosecuting him but they sending a very direct message to all the press at the same time. as in, like we have read with many other cases, the government can make any charge they want to get you. you might walk that fine line perfect but it doesn't matter when the people who hold the law in the backpocket can create new lines and stretch them as needed.

I have seen cases where the government did that first hand, and it's definitely a problem when it happens. But this is not one of those cases. There is not a fine line between a journalist receiving confidential material from a leaker, and someone trying to help someone else illegally expropriate confidential material from government computers. It's in fact a bright line, one that is absolutely necessary.

It is critical that, when real journalists invoke their privilege of publication, they be free from any accusation of engaged in illegal conduct to expropriate that material in the first place. Journalists have carefully avoided dabbling in illegal conduct themselves to protect their credibility and the leeway they receive from the law. Assange is the one who jeopardizes that privilege. Because the next time a journalist publishes stolen information, the government can hold up Assange as an example of why the journalist should be investigated to see if they had a hand in illegal activity.

I have no doubt that many folks who should be protesting Assange's arrest but aren't are acting thus because they dislike him. But I haven't seen anyone actually make that argument explicitly. I've seen more of the opposite -- e.g. that even though he may be an asshole, his arrest is wrong and sets a bad precedent.

Here, I will try.

In my opinion, Assange lost his moral high ground after it came out that he was communicating with Trump Jr. and helping the Trump campaign. And that he delayed and timed the DNC and Podesta leaks to cause maximum advantage to Trump, instead of just releasing them when ready. On top of that Wikileaks lied that they did not have contacts with the Trump campaign.

Not to mention that DNC and Podesta were private entities, not government officials and zero illegality was revealed by those leaks. He later was asking Trump Jr to ask Trump to recommend himself as the Aussie ambassador to the US as payment for helping Trump win.

If he exposed corruption or overreach in the Obama admin, or something that Hillary did as SoS, that had the side effect of Trump winning, that's fair game and he would have my support.

In other words, exposing government overreach = good.

Indiscriminately releasing private entities emails with intent to politically influence and gain political clout = bad.

For all of Snowden's fault of releasing too much information and details of NSA thats expected of a foreign focused intelligence agency like NSA after the initial leaks, atleast he never took partisan political sides.

But those aren't (imho) compelling arguments for charging Assange with a crime. Press protections should not be contingent on making a judgment of whether a journalist's work is deemed "good" or otherwise noble. Also, being a "private entity" is not a litmus test for whether an entity is public and newsworthy -- news orgs aren't barred from publishing secret/confidential material from corporations or entertainment celebrities.

You asked this:

>I have no doubt that many folks who should be protesting Assange's arrest but aren't are acting thus because they dislike him. But I haven't seen anyone actually make that argument explicitly.

I am making that argument explicitly, though I don't claim to speak for everyone. Public opinion and sympathy varies from case to case based on perceptions.

> Also, being a "private entity" is not a litmus test for whether an entity is public and newsworthy

What's newsworthy about leaking someone being on maternity leave? The only newsworthy thing that came out of Podesta's emails was that 4chan and alt right trolls and conspiracy theorists created Pizzagate out of thin air, causing death threats to families and communities.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john...

And someone going to Comet Ping Pong and firing shots. Feel free to point me to Podesta's emails being newsworthy.

Not to mention Assange intentionally falsely implying Seth Rich was the real leaker, causing distress to his family.

>news orgs aren't barred from publishing secret/confidential material from corporations or entertainment celebrities

That's why I never thought Gawker held a high moral ground.

What's newsworthy about doxxing almost all women in Turkey?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/why-did-wikileaks-hel...

What's newsworthy about publishing details of agents in secret in places like Afghanistan, apart from endangering their lives at the hands of terrorists? What's newsworthy about publishing social security numbers and passwords unredacted?

Why should press protections apply to someone that tried to crack a NTLM password of a login of the US military? If anyone else did that, they would be prosecuted, why should Assange get special treatment?

Edit: In case you think things like Pizzagate were not aided and abetted by Wikileaks, they helpfully created a wiki for it.

https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate

Basically helping spread nonsensical fringe conspiracy theories to destabilize the US, just like Russia wants. Their goal wasn't to expose anything, it was to inflame the US and support Trump at any cost to divide the nation and weaken it.

The only newsworthy thing that came out of Podesta's emails was that 4chan and alt right trolls...

There was also Hillary's ironic Wall Street speeches and Donna's debate prep. Not a good look!

> created Pizzagate out of thin air,

not out of thin air. but by several suggestive photos, some with pro-pedophilic comments/captions. If you were a PR firm, one of the few ways you could deflect accusations would be to infiltrate that group and make statements on their behalf that are as bizarre and irrational as possible. Which is funny because that's exactly what happened. All the signal was drowned out by orders-of-magnitude more noise.

Was the british pariliament child abuse ring made up out of thin air too ? Why didn't they just drown that out as fake news from alt conspiracists ?

> In my opinion, Assange lost his moral high ground after it came out that he was communicating with Trump Jr. and helping the Trump campaign

In my opinion, Donna Brazile lost her moral high ground after it came out, from Assange, via the Podesta leaks, that she was communicating with the Clinton Campaign and helping them prep the debate questions.

Or does "moral high ground" only apply to one side in your book?

> he delayed and timed the DNC and Podesta leaks to cause maximum advantage

Very unjournalistic of him! Real news organizations never play sides, or game the news cycle, or the political cycle.

For example: I'm confident someone just a happened to stumble upon the Access Hollywood tapes in some dusty archive right at the moment they were released, and no thought was given to timing.

> If he exposed corruption or overreach in the Obama admin, or something that Hillary did as SoS, that had the side effect of Trump winning, that's fair game and he would have my support.

Did he ever mention Libya in any of his leaks or interviews? I forget.

>helping them prep the debate questions

Yea, she leaked that the debate held in Flint, Michigan would talk about lead contamination in the drinking water, as if that wasn't super obvious.

Yes, it was a shitty move, she wasn't on high moral ground in my book in the first place. But why bring up the whataboutism? Lets agree that both Donna and Assange are political agenda driven partisans not deserving of respect? But it was never a secret with Donna, she was always heavily democratic and partisan and it's known to everyone. Meanwhile Assange tries superhard to appear non-partisan, even begging Trump Jr for some leaks so that he could fake being nonpartisan!

>Very unjournalistic of him! Real news organizations never play sides, or game the news cycle, or the political cycle.

So Assange is bad as Fox News or MSNBC now? I thought the hype about Wikileaks was how clean they were.

>For example: I'm confident someone just a happened to stumble upon the Access Hollywood tapes in some dusty archive right at the moment they were released, and no thought was given to timing.

So Wikileaks is the same as shitty media sources and not some saints out to change the world like 75% of ppl on here are saying?

Thanks for making my point.

If the release of emails was indiscriminate how were they attempting to influence?

Yup. Silence is way easier.

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