Assange Hearing Day 14
craigmurray.org.uk
craigmurray.org.uk
It is an internationally important trial for news journalists everywhere. Shame on the so-called mainstream media for completely, wilfully, ignoring the proceedings.
While I think a lot of media bashing is trite, this really does need to be said in this case.
"The media" is probably even wrong term. That calls to mind a corporate industry mostly about entertainment. Here, what is wrong is "journalism." Mainstream "journalism" isn't doing its job, even though this story relates directly to stuff of interest to journalism. Confidentiality of sources. Freedom of the press. What happens when journalism upsets powerful people and institutions. etc.
Whatever your opinions of Assange himself, the Assange case is setting precedents that will play out over the next generation.
Part of the irony here is that I am sure journalists are all following the case. They're just not reporting on it very much.
And I agree to adding "journalism" or "news content provider" to more accurately reflect what's going on.
And that's not even getting into television journalism. I don't have much first hand about it, but my suspicion there is that the proliferation of cable news led to a similar fall in revenue for the journalism that network news used to be able to support. Worse, is I think the proliferation of cable news started to change news consumption, making it more and more a form of entertainment, and less and less a form of information and contemplation.
Then there's the internet... I once believed that the internet would set the world free, by making it easier and easier to gain knowledge. And while, I personally find it easier to gain specific knowledge than ever (even while the average quality drops precipitously), there's just so much information (for lack of a better word) being pushed to us daily that things like long term issues related to whistle blower extradition, just has too much to compete with, even if it may have very serious repercussions.
So yeah. Mainstream journalism isn't what it used to be. There's some hope, in that it's easier for an individual to publish content, so more random important topics have a chance to surface. But the noise, there's so much of it that these voices are just drowned out. And, I am really grateful for HN, because the quality of content that bubbles up is quite high (especially in the comments), but I don't ever see the golden age of news journalism coming back.
Anyway, I think the cultural shift has more to do with journalists competing with everyone else (politicians, moms, whoever) directly. When a journalist tweets, it's just a tweet. I think that has eroded their sense of the professional responsibility.
I don't really want to point the finger too sharply though. As I said at the start, I think a lot of media bashing is trite. Still... there is a lack of something exposing itself in this instance.
And you 100% know Assange will have 0 qualms with selling the rights, and extensive phone calls from prison.
How any UK or US politician can stand up now, and call for sanctions against Russia or China or Iran .. beggars belief.
These are the sorts of charades we have been programmed to despise when we see it in our 'enemies' societies, when it happens - but when we are doing it, there is some moral stance that makes it acceptable.
The rule of law is being eroded right before our eyes.
Oh yeah. I forgot about what was done to Habeus Corpus. We are really, really fucked.
Even those among us that have for years recognised the hypocrisy of the West in condemning practises in other countries which they themselves implement, this trial of Assange is so explicit in nature that it's quite unsettling. There was an understanding that this type of thing was a line that a liberal democratic Western nation simply would not cross.
The USA has made so many enemies, it is now behaving like the cornered rat in a cage, i.e. just like its enemies.
No government which supports this behavior, should be allowed to sit another democratic session.
What are you suggesting? Should NATO invade the US and depose the "illegitemate" government? Perhaps the US military itself should stage a coup?
Good luck with that.
Can't get away with genocide unless you're in control, i.e. YEMEN.
That's absolutely true. However the post that I responded to said nothing about extraditions.
Rather, it said: >No government which supports this behavior, should be allowed to sit another democratic session.
Unless I'm having serious reading comprehension problems (which I suppose is possible), OP is suggesting the dissolution of the US Government. I merely asked how they thought that should be accomplished, then wished them luck.
This isn't just 'extradition', any more.
The real free world, i.e. Europe, needs to stand up to this thuggery and do something about it, fast.
UK is showing itself incapable of catching this real attack on free society. With this precedent set - NOBODY is safe, not even one single civilian - to openly discuss the war crimes of our war industry.
The US has excessive punishments and an overly politicised justice system by UK standards, but that’s not the what the hearing is about - legitimate jurisdiction is - and the US, as an ally, is generally trusted to prosecute people fairly under its own laws.
>as an ally, is generally trusted to prosecute people fairly under its own laws
The US ranks lower than most of its allies in the international justice/rule of law rankings, in fact.
Just like it does in health care and education, too.
Where it ranks most of all, though, is BIG FUCKING WEAPONS STOCKPILE.
So, yeah. Consider your moral authority irrelevant, comrade.
It sort of is. There's oodles of evidence that it does not meet the test of extradition, among others on the basis of being a political prosecution.
> the US, as an ally, is generally trusted to prosecute people fairly under its own laws.
No it's not.
I agree. Especially since this is an extradition hearing and not a trial.
While you may not make any distinction between various types of legal proceedings, such distinctions do exist and the differences in statutes and legal precedents have significant impact on how such proceedings happen.
That said, I'm not under the illusion that the Trump administration (and the Obama administration) isn't trying to make an example of Assange.
But let's stick to facts rather than hyperbole. Just a crazy thought.
"just one of the 18 charges relate to computer intrusion and it carries just 5 years' jail, compared to the 175 years Assange faces if the maximum sentence was awarded."
The case is then clearly about 170 years worth of charges, not about hacking (the rest 5 years). And these charges are all the "Espionage Act" charges for a non-US person doing obviously a journalistic work outside of the US.
Independently of that, in the article is, among other topics, a described testimony about the chronology of how the unredacted documents became public and a reference to the article:
https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/21/trump-schwartz-grenell-wi...
Which (a bit chaotically) describes the testimony of Cassandra Fairbanks about what she knows happened in or around White House related to Assange. Interestingly:
"The prosecution did not object to the truth of the matter asserted — that Trump officials were directly involved in plans against Assange."
The conspiracy stuff is also nonsense. Adrian Lamo logs show Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak. It is all selectively-selected and maliciously presented hogwash.
Surely it's evidence of intent (to be an accomplice to hacking) though.
If you ask someone to provide you with what they think is the combination to a safe that you don't have permission to access, then saying "no luck with that" (after receiving it) could still be valid evidence that you were intending at some point to steal something.
It looks like the record is fairly clear that Assange and Manning discussed what documents Assange would like access to and Manning agreed to provide them.
If it is criminal for Assange to obtain/receive/disclose the documents in question, then there's prima facie evidence of a conspiracy.
You can argue that the actual act was not criminal, and so the inchoate offense of conspiracy is also impossible, but it's unclear to me why you think the conspiracy charge, in particular, in nonsensical - could you elaborate?
> If it is criminal for Assange to obtain/receive/disclose the documents in question
If it's so, you have to virtually prosecute every investigative journalist.
Does prosecuting advance the interests of justice? Is this prosecution an efficient use of the limited resources of the prosecutor's office? Given that not everyone is prosecuted, is this prosecution consistent with our own internal standards or rules? How strong is the evidence in the case? How severe was the offense? What is the historical conduct record of the defendant?
The power clique in the West are setting a very clear example to disuade any future asset from accepting the reassurances of protection from a dissenting group.
Part of this demonstration naturally includes _blatant_ disregard for "values" and "laws" of the "international community". They are making a point and clearly wish to make a lasting impression.
I have no way to judge one way or another anything about Wikileaks, but when we get a constant unavoidable stream of utter bullshit day-in day-out regardless of the news sources we attempt to check, the complete silence about this says more than a million words.
Why can't it also be about the 5 years?
I'm sympathetic to Assange publishing leaks. If wikileaks was just an organization that published, fine. But the government's argument is that Assange was not a "journalist" in that he was actively involved in convincing people to leak, directing hackers to steal secrets, and providing direct assistance to Manning.
Those charges sound plausible to me, though not open-and-shut. It should go to trial. 175 years is absurd, but 5-10 seems fine.
"Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said, 'basically any information the whistleblower or source would want to bring up at trial to show that they are not guilty of violating the Espionage Act the jury would never hear. It’s almost a certainty that because the law is so broadly written that they would be convicted no matter what.'"
Given that no journalist has ever been convicted under the Espionage Act[0] in the US, it seems unlikely that Assange will be.
That's not a defense of the US or Assange/Wikileaks. Rather it's a statement of fact. While the US government is, and has been, leery of journalistic freedom for quite some time, the courts/juries have repeatedly smacked down attempts to prosecute journalists under the Espionage Act.
As such, it seems to me that Assange's future (whether or not in a US Federal prison) rests on the ability of US prosecutors to prove that Assange violated the CFAA[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917#Brandenb...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
Prosecution did try early on to paint Assange's work as something other than journalism. They've given up on that line now as it was very weak. Did you see this, for example, from the testimony of investigative journalist Nicky Hager.
'[Prosecutor] Lewis: You have as a journalist merely been the passive recipient of official information. Presumably you have never done anything criminal to obtain government information?
'Hager: You said “passive”. That is not the way we work. Journalists not only actively work our sources. We go out and find our sources. The information might come in documents. It might come on a memory stick. In most cases our sources are breaking the law. Our duty is to help protect them from being caught. We actively help them cover their backs sometimes.'
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
There's a line between being a journalist and engaging in a conspiracy. The quote you provided is an attempt to blur that line. But, as far as the law is concerned, that line exists...and it exists to protect journalists. There's a reason journalists have lawyers in the room when they make these kinds of decisions. It wouldn't be surprising if Julian Assange -- not known for his carefulness -- crossed that line.
Because the political forces, as documented in the very fine article, started what appears to be a purely political trial. The kind of which “everybody” would be outraged if it would be done somewhere without the support of the US, and for a common human more imaginable via works of art like Orwell’s and Kafka‘s than when trying to comprehend what is happening right now.
These political forces decided to make it be about 175 years.
https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/21/guide-to-journalists-assa...
I don't think it's "obviously" journalistic work. Consider how little was redacted, the timing of the leaks, and the blatant bias.
Why is it that you think Wikileaks is 'obviously a journalistic work'?
I really do struggle with this idea, and I would prefer what follows to be considered in the spirit of engagement on this question, rather than a defense of the prosecution or a general opposition to Assange.
What prior examples of journalism are characterized by undifferentiated, unedited, mass dissemination of third-party documents?
I accept that many focal cases of journalism have revolved around disclosure of government secrets that have revealed malfeasance, and that many journalists have needed to work with government sources to get access to privileged information in order to write those stories.
But this is "access to secrets is sometimes needed to best write a story that's in the public interest". Wikileaks, on the other hand, seems to stake out the position that "access to secrets is in the public interest". There is no focus on story, only on disclosure, and that doesn't seem to be journalistic in nature.
If the theory is that this is a new kind of journalism, I think that theory calls for discussion on its own merits. I am initially very unconvinced that 'X is secret therefore X is newsworthy and leaking documents on X is journalism' is sustainable.
The blog post, and the facts, seem to give the lie to your argument.
IIUC (and this was, presumably, the point of much of the testimony related in the blog post) Wikileaks kept the government documents encrypted and provided redacted versions to news organizations for publication and analysis.
That the journalist from The Guardian (his name escapes me at the moment) and not Assange/Wikileaks published a book which provided the decryption key for the unredacted documents, points to Assange/Wikileaks attempting to control the release of information through a number of journalists, without just dumping it all out onto the 'net.
In fact, the testimony relayed in the blog post states that explicitly.
As such, I'd argue that Assange/Wikileaks attempted to act as an archive for journalists to use in presenting the leaked documents.
If that's actually the case, it's difficult to accept the argument that Wikileaks just dumped everything out there willy-nilly.
You have the Iraq War leaks, the Afghan War leaks, the Syria leaks, the DNC leaks, the Vault 7 leaks etc. These were all largely indiscriminate releases.
The whole debacle around Cablegate (David Leigh is the name of the journalist I think you're looking for) makes it hard to know what the plans for the State Dept cables was originally intended to be; as I understand it, the whole archive is now hosted by Wikileaks for public consumption.
For the cases where documents were withheld, Wikileaks generally makes it clear because these were demanded by their sources, rather decided upon by Wikileaks.
I'd only add that my point was absolutely not that Wikileaks/Assange have always been responsible in their public releases of information. Rather it was that the testimony given (at least as reported by the blog post) gives at least the appearance that Assange/Wikileaks attempted to responsibly (for some values of the term) push these disclosures through journalistic outlets, who, at least at first attempted to provide context around the released, redacted documents.
Once there were multiple torrents and hosts for the un-encrypted, unredacted data, there was little point (and little publicity/exposure) in Wikileaks maintaining their encrypted archive.
As for other releases that Wikileaks has done both before and since, those aren't really relevant to the current extradition hearing.
IMHO, what you or I may think about the broader picture is relevant in a larger discussion, but not one about the current legal proceeding.
It is that simple.
Should reporting about crime be fine if you need to illegally access a document that proves the crime happened? What if to get the info you need to murder many people, should that still be legal because you're doing it for the sake of reporting on a crime?
Unless you think the second is just as acceptable. suddenly it's less simple and you need to plan for all the possible ways that various laws might be broken in an entirely ethical task of reporting about a much bigger crime.
Government plays with fire to gather intelligence every day. But if they are caught by journalism, they will use their political power to muffle it. Seems obvious but unfair.
If you cannot question the activities of your government, therefore it is your government?
If you convince an American military person to hack into a computer system and leak you files, and conspire with the Russians to release other hacked files to make the American military and political class look bad, you'll be having a bad decade or two.
Of course.
An extradition hearing is not, and has never been, the place where questions of innocence or guilt are decided.
Of course if you are the wife of a violent man that regularly beats you up and you refuse to prepare dinner tonight, you know you're probably gonna have a bad evening.
Of course you are seeing the point I am making here.
Of course.
Manning contacted Assange with files. Assange didn’t need to “convince” her.
But you are comfortable with the concept of "state secrets"; as long as they're in your favor?
Always the same argument : He knew so he should not have. Imagine applying the same logic elsewhere : "Well people went on that strike but they knew that state/company would send the army and shoot at them so they got what was coming" I could make up a thousand more like that. This is a terrible justification of the order of things.
Naturalising is the oldest known way of justifying an order of things.
I am ready to believe this is not your intention but that does not mean that's not what you are doing.
Still it leaves me with a question : What is your intention beyond stating that "After sun comes rain" or "Boys will be boys"? How do you contribute to the discussion from the outer space point of view from where all seem to look as the result of unavoidable forces?
A strong defense against authoritarianism is not another strong state, it is a well fed, well informed, educated people whose rights are enforced by independent institutions.
Why not keep the old name?
No shit. This sentence just says : "Accept things how they are" This is the sentence of tyrans and their priests.
"Well not everybody can be free you know" said the slaveowner. "Well not all people are equals you know" said the aristocrat.
Julian Assange does not seem that brave to me. Or the circumstances were not right for him to show that exceptional bravery.
I think rather he thought that what he is doing is lawful and protected activity. Nobody acting in good faith should be punished more than for honest mistake.
This is what happening here. Journalist is being punished for literally doing his job. In good faith. All while residing in countries where rule of law is declared, not in Turkey or Russia.