I am incredibly happy for this ruling, I really hope it stands after the appeals. Freedom of expression and the right to know what oppresive governments are doing are too important to lose.
> 363. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.
For anyone not suffering from severe mental health problems that want to expose secrets this ruling in scary as hell.
If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances?
Barring civil rights problems, corruption, etc (e.g., some very specific exceptions), it seems in general that we should want to allow extradition so that justice can be met. No?
This is not far removed from "Think of the children" style rhetoric that is used in the US to pass all kinds of oppressive laws and regulations
Everyone can generally agree that having a murderer stand trail is a good thing, but what about someone that illegal distributes a file to one nation thus committing a "crime" in that nation.
What about other less extreme crimes, which is more often what extradition treaties are used for, not murder as your strawman desires it to be
This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.
[0] """conspiracy contrary to Title 18 of the US Code (the “U.S.C.”), section 371. The offence alleged to be the object of the conspiracy was computer intrusion (Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1030)""" was the actual phrase used
https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-nigerian-law-means-seven-y...
There are countless examples of state sponsored hacking. There's no way the actor would be punished in the country of origin if their country of origin was not only OK with their actions but supporting them. Does that mean whoever did it should be free to travel anywhere they want without repercussions? You're essentially saying that countries are no longer allowed to enforce their laws on any foreign citizens... that seems EXTREMELY short sighted.
Furthermore, how would the country of origin even prosecute when the victim wasn't one of their citizens. What are the mental gymnastics to say that your citizens can't be prosecuted anywhere but their country of origin...b ut the victims have to what? Travel to your country to get justice? If a nigerian scammer is caught, you expect a US citizen to fly to nigeria on their own dime to try make their case?
But you couldn't prosecute Assange in the UK for conspiracy to steal documents from the US and damage done to US national security, but at best for damage done to UK national security through that.
(It's possible I am misunderstanding something?)
Countries are sovereign, a Nigerian person living in Nigeria is only beholden to laws of Nigeria.
In your world, you can accuse someone who lives in Mongolia of a crime that doesn't even exist is Mongolian legal system, such as some peculiarities of US copyright or packaging of lobsters. You seem to think they should be flown to the US to be tried at your convenience to in a language they don't speak, in a legal system they don't understand at their expense?
You could prosecute him in Australia for hacking in whatever form it broke Australian law. How can any non-US citizen be held responsible for some vague 'damage to US national security' if they have nothing to do with the US? Why should a hypothetical person living in Nigeria be responsible for US, UK, Russian, Saudi, Israeli and everyone else's national security?
An individual can't 'make war', only countries can do that.
We are talking about an allegation (not proven!) of a crime, highly political in nature to boot, not 'retaliation'
On the other hand, this is also a very obvious slippery slope if now the jurisdiction of any country were to be applied globally.
What if a country abuses this to get rid of political opponents, to gain an economic advantage or to cover up its own crimes? (See e.g. the recent threats from China about showing solidarity with the Hong Kong movement even outside of China. See the US covering up war crimes.)
What happens if two countries have mutually exclusive laws? (e.g. at least for some time, it was a crime in Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian genocide while in France it was a crime to not acknowledge it)
If we don't want this to devolve simply to "rule of the strongest", more detailed rules are needed.
Service is considered to be delivered in the country where the service beneficiary is.
That's why financial services cannot be delivered cross border, without legal approval in the "destination" country.
On the other hand sales of goods is something that happens in the seller's country - that's how companies in countries without consumer protection can just tell you to STFU on thing you bought from them.
BTW: No saying it's right or wrong, but it's definitely something else than justice or a Curt-order.
Honestly I don't understand how Americans still trust our news sources today.
Yeah that's a bit crazy if you ask me.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-...
All I have been able to find was 1 French newspaper publishing what it claimed was a French intelligence report that simply noted that Saudi intelligence agencies believe bin Laden had died in 2006. The report seems to have been immediately noted by the French president as not being confirmed. Furhtermore, in 2010 a recording of bin Laden threatening France was confirmed as genuine by the French Foreign Ministry, showing that French intelligence services still considered it at least possible that he was still alive.
So you can stop with the "justice angle" on that one.
"""On 12 July 2018 the higher court in Schleswig-Holstein [Germany] confirmed that Puigdemont could not be extradited by the crime of rebellion, but may still be extradited based on charges of misuse of public funds. Puigdemont's legal team said they would appeal any decision to extradite him. Ultimately, though, Spain dropped its European arrest warrant, ending the extradition attempt. Puigdemont was once again free to travel, and chose to return to Belgium.""" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carles_Puigdemont
A lot of things are political in nature.
But extraditions are mostly issues of diplomacy, not justice.
Extradition cases sadly fails all three of those. They are extremely selective enforced, there are few safeguards, and generally no punishment against officials that fails to uphold the few safeguards that exist. The whole ordeal is intertwined with diplomatic relations and politics of both national and international nature.
> If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances?
Perhaps in certain circumstances. But in general, this is a dispute between A and B. C should let those two countries handle it. I.e., deport the citizen back to A, their home country. [edited: s/extradite/deport]
Consider: in many countries, certain forms of speech are illegal. I shouldn't need to worry that I may have said something illegal in China in order to visit South Korea. It's hard enough to learn all the laws in the country I am visiting, let alone every country that directly or indirectly has an extraction treaty.
The one scenario where I could see this being reasonable is within a bloc of countries that have free travel between and a somewhat unified set of laws, and only for breaking one of those bloc-level laws.
I'll just note that in your example, if C is just trying to stay neutral and acting of its own accord, then the correct term would be that C would deport the suspect to A rather than extradite the suspect to A, unless A is seeking extradition in its own right.
---
I am imagining a scenario like the UN countries all agreeing on a common standard for extradition.
The guiding principle I'm working off of is that if B and C share the same law against X, then extradition is reasonable. The fuzzy line is where B and C both outlaw X, but each have their own laws against it.
On one hand, it is reasonable. If B and C both outlaw murder, then C should extradite the murderer, because the citizen can't claim ignorance, nor can they claim that "murder isn't illegal here in C."
On the other hand, I have trouble seeing how you'd write a consistent standard here. Sure, it's easy to equivocate premeditated murder across different laws, but what about even manslaughter? Then it requires both countries to have the same definition of negligence, etc.
So basically, the only form of extradition treaty that doesn't seem to pose an unreasonable burden on tourists is, "Here is a set of laws that are enforced in both B and C. If you break these laws in B and then flee to C (or vice versa), you are still under jurisdiction of the law you broke, so you may be extradited."
In practice, that might look like CHN and KOR signing a treaty that unifies their libel law. Then, if you commit libel against someone in CHN while in KOR, you may be extradited. This is quite reasonable, since a tourist would be expected to learn KOR libel law before travelling there.
> I'll just note that in your example, if C is just trying to stay neutral and acting of its own accord, then the correct term would be that C would deport the suspect to A rather than extradite the suspect to A, unless A is seeking extradition in its own right.
Thanks, edited.
Espionage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...
Otherwise there would be a booming naturalization business for some less-scrupulous nations.
>some less-scrupulous nations
Like the US, where you can buy your "out of prison" Card?
https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/auslieferungs-gesuch/2803478
Argentina asked Switzerland to extradite Jean Bernard Lasnaud for smuggling Weapons to Ecuador and Croatia (he's French), and why Argentinia? Because the former President Carlos Menem and other Politicians where involved in it.
As an example, France would ask A if he can extradited to France and prosecuted there, even when let's say the crime was in Country B. The US did something like that with Otto Warmbier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier
That whole thing is often not National or International Law but Diplomatic (especially with someone like Assange)
That's Argentina asking Switzerland to extradite a French citizen to Argentina for crimes committed under Argentinian law. The article does not say that France was asked for their opinion or permission.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier
That's the US asking North Korea to release a US citizen jailed there for a crime against North Korean law. Extradition does not enter the picture at all.
UK is way better than Australia in terms of bill of rights, etc.
How would this work in the context of English courts?
The UK has other history about journalists hacking (see the phone hacking scandal).
It's one thing to receive the contents of a hack, and quite another to offer active assistance to exploit systems.
Hacking and computer sabotage.... really? You call that justice? It is not and the UK jurisdiction remains a joke. A posh joke, but a joke nonetheless.
Please... as if there would have been alternative to leaking hunan rights violations.
> as if there would have been alternative to leaking hunan rights violations.
The comment you're responding to did not make either of these claims.
I fully support Assange FYI, but at the same time I think he possibly broke laws while doing his (incredibly important) work, or at least there would be enough ambiguity around law to bring a case to the crown court (remember this is the magistrates).
And, no doubt the celebrity's supporters would argue that he'd crossed the line from journalism to hacking as well.
If Assange were a Russian holed up in Belarus being extradited to Russia for uncovering Russian war crimes by cracking password hashes I really wonder how many people here would still be arguing that he "crossed the line".
My guess is precisely zero, and any Russians who did so would be mocked and accused of being shills.
Additionally in the eyes of the law, hacking a celebrity does not bring a higher punishment than hacking a nation state, despite its good intentions and the public interest of the released information.
And he isn't accused of "helping to protect an intelligence source", because that's not a crime. One claim raised by the prosecution is that Assange was sent hashes and ran them against a rainbow table in an attempt to provide assistance to manning in order to grant further access to confidential government systems.
If this claim is true or not, we don't know because it hasn't gone to court yet, but the accusation is more than "just protecting a source".
And personally I think there should be an exception to releasing documents that show government wrongdoing which means it isn't illegal - however this is not codified in law.
Was it ever proved that he did? There was some non-committal talk quoted, but nothing beyond that?
You also say "for example" - are there any other credible allegations that Assange "crossed the line"?
No, which is why in the judgment every reference to a supposed attempt of "cracking a hash" is preceded by "alleged".
There is no proven accusation because Assange hasn't gone to trial, which is the part of the process where that standard applies.
The credible allegation part is the indictment handed down from a federal grand jury; this is the 'probable cause' standard.
What I meant was rather: has there been made any credible/sensible accusation for him being involved in hacking? Because while the drivel made it through the grand jury, it's still a vague answer without any allegations of follow-up. Could I help you crack a password hash? Sure, maybe I could. Am I now conspiring to hack into a military network? I rather think not. And that's even though you have my offer in writing.
edit: added 'allegedly' as his guilt or innocence is not evaluated
In short, Manning told Assange she could access a military filing cabinet, and was going to go remove all the documents in them to leak to Assange. Before leaving, she asked Assange if he had some gloves to hide her fingerprints. He said he'd check, and Manning left to grab the documents.
Would you consider Assange's actions there to cross the line of journalism?
The journalist in your example should not be accessory to a crime.
If Manning asked for gloves to hide her fingerprints, Assange should have answered "send me the documents when you have them, but I can't help you hiding your fingerprints"
If you imagine the hack being another crime, maybe it's clearer.
Imagine Manning told Assange she could get the files but in order to get them she had to kill the guards at the door and asked Assange if he had a gun.
Why stop there, while we are at it, imagine she had to commit a terrorist attack and a genocide at once and Assange volunteered to help
A journalist should not be accessory to a crime when receiving infornations.
I made that example to make it clearer, but if you don't like it I can make another one: to get the documents she needed to open the door, so she Asked Assange if he had a crowbar.
The simple fact that he didn't say "no, I can't help you with that" is the problem.
Which is why all the war crimes detailed in Manning's leaks have been prosecuted with the criminals behind bars.
Further, a crime isn't just a crime. A journalist attempting to protect their source is an essential part of their freedom of the press. Prosecuting them for that action infringes on their rights, making it unconstitutional. Even if you disagree with my assessment of Assange's actions, it should be clear that justice does care about the context.
What Assange is accused of is not that.
> Even if you disagree with my assessment of Assange's actions, it should be clear that justice does care about the context.
It doesn't.
Protecting a source is not a crime, hence a journalist cannot be prosecuted for that.
Nobody is forced to reveal a criminal activity, people have the right to remain silent.
Another thing entirely is if someone actively participated in committing the crime (for example helping a thief to hide their fingerprints)
Also, I don't believe Assange should be extradited, but from a legal point it doesn't matter if he looked for gloves because Manning wanted to hide her fingerprints or a gun, if (and it's a big if) he said "I'll help you" that's a problem.
I'm being downvoted for basically stating the obvious and, worse than that, by people that do not stop a second to think about what other people wrote.
I'm not putting Assange on trial, I'm not a judge, this is not a tribunal, I was just clarifying what he's been accused of!
Having said that: yes, if you are the driver in a Bank robbery, you can get arrested for "basically driving a car"
The crime is not driving, is helping other criminals to commit the crime.
Which is what Assange is accused of. He's not accused of running hashcat.
Even if he did the decryption with pen and paper and failed he would be an "accessory to the crime" (allegedly, because he's only accused of doing it)
To put it in other words, he is accused of being
> a person who knowingly and voluntarily participates in the commission of a crime.
Regardless of the crime, the simple fact that he (allegedly) helped is a crime.
> Having said that: yes, if you are the driver in a Bank robbery, you can get arrested for "basically driving a car"
Driving in a bank robbery is different to basically just doing some calculations. It might be a crime but it should not be one. Regardless though I would claim that even if he tried to physically get into buildings and steal documents in order to expose warcrimes I would say that they should let him free.
Doing some calculations is doing some calculations
Driving for bank robbers or doing some calculations for the mob can be a crime, if driving or doing calculations was helping them to commit a crime and you knew it.
> even if he tried to physically get into buildings and steal documents in order to expose warcrimes I would say that they should let him free.
That's your opinion.
I'm not saying you are wrong in principle, but that's not how law works.
My opinion __is not__ that Assange should have refused to help Mannings, Assange is an adult, he can chose to do whatever he wants.
What I'm saying is that Assange should have refused to be accessory to a crime.
Journalists are protected when they receive classified informations, even if obtained illegaly, as long as the journalist didn’t do anything illegal
He knew he was helping with something illegal (at least he should have known) and that by doing it he would lose the kind of protections guaranteed to the press.
These two are literally the same thing.
Sorry if I insist on this, but helping != being accessory to a crime.
You can help in many ways, most of them are not crimes.
If I ask you to help me to set on fire the car of someone who harassed my girlfriend and you say "I can't" you are not refusing to help, you are refusing to commit a crime in order to help me. You might help in other ways like saying "please, don't do this".
Because "stating the obvious" is rarely a productive mode of discussion. People are trying to discuss the nuance of the topic, but you have a very hard-lined view that leaves little room to actually discuss anything.
I've read "Dei delitti e delle pene" (on crimes and punishments) from Cesare Beccaria many times.
I truly believe what Montesquieu said "every punishment which does not arise from absolute necessity is tyrannical"
That's why I also believe that justice means letting the judicial system do its job and prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that someone is guilty or let him go.
We can discuss about what we believe is right or wrong, but that won't change the reasons why Assange is being prosecuted.
It's up to the court now to prove him guilty or declare him an innocent man.
When I say I'm stating the obvious I'm not expressing any opinion on Assange's actions, I'm only saying what are the charges.
We can agree or disagree with them, but we can't undo what's already happened.
He's accused of allegedly helping Mannings to commit a crime.
That's all I've said.
A crime still isn't just a crime though. A less ambiguous example, unauthorized possession's of classified information is a crime, yet no journalist has been charged for it.
"I'll help" is not a problem, if they are not helping someone to commit a crime (clarification: when I say "it's a problem" I mean it's a problem for whoever says "I'll help" because they are being accessory to a crime).
What routinely escapes from the prosecution of the law is irrelevant.
The fact that I have downloaded copyrighted material without any consequence doesn't make it legal.
A crime is a crime by the law, the court has to decide if you either committed it or not (regardless if you did it for real, if the court can prove you did it, you did it).
That doesn't mean that killing a baby and downloading an episode of a TV show illegally is the same thing, it means that if I helped you to download the content and you are accused of downloading that content and the court can prove it, I am accessory to the crime even if people routinely get by.
> unauthorized possession's of classified information is a crime
Are you referring to this?
> Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.
What journalists do is not retain them, it's publish them, which AFAIK is not illegal.
Unless you are just immediately releasing all documents you receive unedited, you will have to retain them for a period first.
Would a journalist raided the second before he could click publish be committing a crime, while a second later he would not be committing a crime and have never been committing a crime.
I'm not American, but I think that two points are relevant to the discussion
- few people in American history have been prosecuted for leaking classified documents, the most simple explanation is that it would mean revealing even more classified documents during the trial
- journalist can’t be punished for publishing info that was obtained illegally, as long as the journalist didn’t do anything illegal
Assange is accused of helping the leaker to obtain the documents illegally, which is illegal.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what DOJ is charging him with.
I get the feeling people in this thread are getting mixed up between the difference of what people think is right or should be right and what the courts and laws say.
I think Assange was a hero. At the same time, the claim that he tried to help crack a US military hash to assist with extracting files does sound pretty illegal on the face of it, despite its good intentions and positive outcomes for truth and journalism.
Just because you did good by breaking the law, or that you broke the law in the name of journalism, doesn't provide you protection from the courts in the eyes of the law (And particularly not at a magistrates court!).
In practical terms, a journalist covering a protest should not be treated the same by security forces as a protestor. I am sure other, similar scenarios can be imagined.
> as the watchdogs of government.
More like dogs of the government. The ones willing to go against it in any meaningful manner are few and sidelined.
The second part, I won't disagree.
Your right to privacy conflicts with the State's desire for surveillance, your right for self-defence can clear your of charges of manslaughter, and depending on exact circumstances the judge will decide if your actions were justified or if you belong in jail.
Not really, we have judges at the level of the magistrates to apply laws based on the precedents set in higher courts, not based on their own feelings of what the law should be.
There are legal tests that need to be applied - in your example about murder and surgery the definition of murder requires intent. As we know from cases like Shipman, a surgery can be murder, but it’s not for the judge to decide that arbitrarily, it’s for a judge to apply case law.
A district judge is not a one person jury!
But having sided with the U.S. on pretty much all of the counts concerning press freedom, an appeals court may well 'find' that the heath condition is not enough.
I REALLY hope am wrong here.
But it goes to show the West is again only concerned with 'press freedom' when it's our strategic competitors violating it.
It is highly likely that the High Court will be asked to re-examine pretty much the whole judgment; it's highly unlikely that the defence won't question the holdings that they lost.
(It is also pretty likely that this will then be appealed to the Supreme Court, and relatively likely the case will be heard there too.)
And Obama's DoJ apparently decided not to pursue the case, why would we expect Biden's DoJ to come to a different conclusion?
It's also interesting that this case has so many overlapping conspiracy theories that I don't even know if my initial comment is downvoted by US patriots for suggesting that the case might be politically motivated (which is the assertion made by Assanges defence team and many human rights groups), or by Assange supporters for suggesting that there was no ongoing investigation in 2010 and the Swedish allegations were not a plot by the DoJ :)
Because the intelligence community hates Assange and what he represents. They spied on US lawmakers, tortured, manufactured evidence... I find it hard to believe they WOULDN'T meddle in this case.
> Obama's DoJ apparently decided not to pursue the case, why would we expect Biden's DoJ to come to a different conclusion?
Because post 2016 election the Democrats are no friends of Assange and WiliLeaks, regardless of the implications for press freedom.
If anything, as the judge notes, the current administration was likely somewhat more "friendly" to Assange than the Biden administration will be.
Your position seems to be that the defense is mistaken, but that the case is still political because it was already started as that under Obama and continues to be politically motivated throughout the Trump and Biden administrations?
UK also doesn't really have freedom of speech or press in any meaningful way. I'm not surprised it failed on those grounds.
Later in the same thread it says they have 14 days to do so and already announced they will.
Not in a way meaningful to libertarian extremists, no - thank goodness.
Citizens and the press can say pretty much what they want, barring libel and what you might describe as “violence done through speech” ie threats, harassment or abuse.
Consider that if I were to walk through London wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with “Atheist” I’d be perfectly safe. I suspect doing the same in many US towns or cities might result in assault - contrast “liberties” with “effective freedoms”.
Also, political free speech is pretty much absolute in the UK - it’s citizens putting the boot in to each other in public that tends to attract Police interest in keeping the peace.
While I have a lot of sympathy for your argument about effective freedoms vs. de jure liberties, someone was stopped and told to cover up her "fuck Boris" t-shirt by police in London not that long ago[1]. (Though, while I consider the stop ridiculous, at the same time at least the officers in question otherwise conducted themselves calmly)
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnso...
If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perhaps - a temporary arrest might be justified, would you accept?
My point is our freedom of expression laws are aimed at creating an atmosphere where people don’t feel violence is necessary to defend their position or sensibility - it’s where we happen to draw the line in the paradox of tolerance.
However, I should not suddenly be in MORE trouble for wearing an indecent shirt because it made someone standing around me angry enough to get rowdy.
> "(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he/she:
> (a) uses threatening [or abusive] words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
> (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening [or abusive],
> within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."
> If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perhaps - a temporary arrest might be justified, would you accept?
In principle, if the language had been bad enough, yes. In this case? No, I would not. It's not nearly offensive enough language that you won't hear far worse on a regular basis. If someone can't handle seeing a t-shirt like that, they would not last long in London.
Here she'd be more likely to cause offence people by wearing a "Boris is great" t-shirt. Personally I'd find that horribly offensive (I'm not being facetious - the guy is a threat to life and liberty), but I wouldn't argue for it to be banned, because it's nowhere near bad enough for a reasonable person to disturb public order over.
[This is especially true because Boris is a politician, and people need to expect coarser language used to express frustration]
If an actual aggrieved party had been present and reported her, then they would have had a reason to intervene to at least consider the issue. But that aggrieved party is and was entirely hypothetical.
If the US seeks to appeal, it'd be under s105 of the Extradition Act.
If the appeal is filed and accepted, Assange can be kept in remand pending appeal under s107.
It is true that the UK technically doesn't guarantee 'freedom of the press' per se, it does have laws however that protect the freedom of expression, not as strongly as the 1st Amendment but still.
Further, there's a long precedent of British newspapers doing what WikiLeaks does and even collaborating with WikiLeaks without being prosecuted.
It's clear Assange is someone who the intelligence community views as an individual who crossed them and needs to be used to deter others. Reading the judgment it is hard not to come to the conclusion she agrees with this view.
The judge discusses that in the opinion. The difference she notes is that the newspapers carefully choose what they publish in order to avoid harm--for example, they don't publish the names of government informants even if those names are contained in the materials they obtain, since that would put the lives of those informants at risk. Wikileaks did not do that with the information obtained from Manning; they just released it all. The judge quotes the newspapers themselves condemning Wikileaks for doing that.
She cites the Guardian who has a history of questionable reporting on Assange and WikiLeaks because they didn't do a good job[1][2].
In fact WikiLeaks made a point of going via the newspapers after being blamed.
There's (luckily) no exams (yet) for what makes a journalist. Someone who has a blog is no less a journalist than anyone at a national newspaper.
> They have to rely on real newspapers or the pentagon (!) to do it for them. It’s no defence to say: we tried to get other people to help us do the right thing
Actually it is. That's why intention is regularly taken into account in court cases and it shows WikiLeaks had the intention to redact and if needed even via the Pentagon.
> but we couldn’t, so we did the wrong thing instead.
They did no 'wrong' thing instead. They tried to consult the U.S. Government about any needed redactions and then published vital information to inform the public that the government is committing war crimes of foreign soil in their name.
Not publishing that would've been wrong and was most likely the goal of the Pentagon in not cooperating.
Is similar with zero days, researchers publish them if the vendor doesn't cooperate because not doing so and letting black hats exploit a known bug is way more 'wrong' than publishing the 0day widely is.
No, it shows that Wikileaks can be just as disingenuous as any other "journalistic" organization. Wikileaks made a request to the US government that it had to know the US government would refuse (for the reason I gave in my other post in response to you upthread). It did that so it could disingenuously claim that it gave the US government a chance to protect people's names and the US government refused, making it seem like it's the US government's fault, not Wikileaks's fault, that the names got published. That's not "responsible journalism"; it's Wikileaks playing power politics just like governments and the media do.
> published vital information to inform the public that the government is committing war crimes of foreign soil in their name
Wikileaks could have published that information without publishing anyone's name. They chose not to do it that way.
It's the U.S. government who committed war crimes here and used secrecy to conceal their crimes. Of course it's the U.S. government's fault. The option to not commit war crimes and use the secrets act to conceal it was there. They didn't take it.
The U.S. Government proved it will use 'top secret' to hide not only information that is actually top secret but also information that is embarrassing. This would be a pretty clear motivator for the Pentagon not to respond and for WikiLeaks to go ahead with the publication.
> Wikileaks could have published that information without publishing anyone's name.
No. Names as such are vital. It lets you know WHO needs to be held accountable. Most leaks are published with names in them. There are names that the U.S. government could have suggested (not demand) to be redacted and WikiLeaks could have agreed to either some or all of the requests. They refused to cooperate. It's pretty clearly on them.
I also love how the people exposing war crimes are getting more heat that the actual war criminals who never spent a day behind bars. Speaks volumes.
Even if the US government is at fault, that still doesn't mean Wikileaks can't also be at fault. Two wrongs don't make a right.
> Names as such are vital. It lets you know WHO needs to be held accountable.
Names of US government officials who made decisions that are being questioned, perhaps.
Names of people in other countries with oppressive regimes, who passed on information on the understanding that their names would be kept confidential, no.
Between the two wrongs, am going to focus on the one where the most powerful military on Earth guns down civilians & journalists. Especially given Julian has already paid dearly for exposing what we should have known. The war criminals themselves haven't spent a day behind bars.
> Names of people in other countries with oppressive regimes, who passed on information on the understanding that their names would be kept confidential, no.
WikiLeaks asked for these names so they can redact them. The Pentagon refused. This is on them, as are the war crimes themselves.
No, they asked for those names knowing that the US government couldn't possibly give them since that would expose the identities of people who would then be put at risk of their lives. In other words, they purposely put the US government in a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. As I've already said upthread.
IMO this would actually be a valid argument--Assange has already effectively served a sentence even though he hasn't been officially tried--but Assange's defense apparently did not make it.\
I note, btw, that this kind of consideration (as well as other considerations you have raised) is also one that a US President could take into account in deciding whether or not to pardon Assange. Do you think the President should do that?
Assange tried (at least he claims he tried) to get the US government to help him remove names that it felt should not be released. The US government refused. Which is perfectly understandable: why should the US government tell Wikileaks exactly which names in some leaked documents are the names of actual US government informants? That would be stupid.
Assange then chose to release all the material anyway, putting the life of anyone whose names were in that material potentially at risk. Newspapers, in the same position, did not publish the names. Whether you agree or not with either action, the fact remains that they are clearly different actions, and that one involves publishing people's names and potentially putting their lives at risk and the other does not.
What if you lived in an oppressive regime and believed, rightly or wrongly, that the US was trying to help improve the situation in your country, and you gave the US information? Would you still be OK with your name being published and your life being put at risk?
If that's stupid then complaining asking him to redact names without telling him which ones is even more stupid and gives the U.S. no right to complain. Especially when top secret is used to conceal war crimes.
> Assange then chose to release all the material anyway
Not publishing war crimes because those who commited them refuse to cooperate in redacting names would be a great way for the Pentagon to make sure their crimes stay hidden. In fact it appears that was their goal in not cooperating.
> Newspapers, in the same position, did not publish the names.
Newspapers were NOT in the same position. They published the leaks but Pentagon started cooperating with them by then.
It's remarkable that people exposing war criminals get more blame that actual war criminals who did not face any consequences and laughed about while murdering civilians including journalists.
He should have had the good judgment to redact all names even without being asked to. (Or at least all names that he didn't know belonged to people whose lives would not be put at risk by their publication.) He didn't.
> Newspapers were NOT in the same position.
It is true that newspapers (and other "mainstream" media organizations) have a special relationship with governments (and note that I'm not saying it's right that they do, only that as a matter of fact they do), so they aren't in exactly the same position as Wikileaks. That still does not excuse Wikileaks putting people's lives at risk by publishing their names.
> people exposing war criminals get more blame that actual war criminals
I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange, so you have no basis for even making any such comparison.
Also, I'm not blaming Assange for publishing the material itself. I'm blaming him for publishing people's names and putting their lives at risk. As I've already said, he could have published the material without publishing the names. He chose not to.
So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?
> I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange
Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.
If there issue is that high ranking officials aren't being held accountable, there's no reason to publish the names of some random agent.
That's not as easy as it sounds. Many of the names you'd want to leave up would be of smaller generals whom you may not be familiar with. The actual shooters should perhaps also not be redacted. At least not fully.
> Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.
They do this by being cozy with the Pentagon and asking them exactly for what WikiLeaks has asked them for. The difference is the Pentagon's not going to ignore an email from the NYT. It did ignore WikiLeaks.
Investigative journalism is a difficult profession. Yet people manage. Throwing your hands up is a disservice to the profession. Calling someone who does so a journalist is a disservice to actual investigative journalists.
That's not investigative journalism. It's much closer to muckraking.
The ones that had so cozy of a relationship with the Pentagon that they saw no problem in being government mouthpieces and getting the public to support a war in Iraq that killed 200k+ people on a made up pretense of WMDs. Same for Lybia, Syria etc.?
Because that's how you get the level of government access to be what you'd consider a 'real' journalist.
I am glad that you don't get to define who makes a 'real' journalist and who doesn't. Julian is not one of these[1] indeed.
I consider that journalistic malpractice. Like I said, investigative journalism is difficult. People, including the "real ones" sometimes do it badly. When they do, the good ones apologize and retract.
For what its worth, I don't actually think that you'd need particular government access to do a reasonable job of censoring the names of at risk agents in the documents wikileaks leaked. I'd go far enough to say that me, as a layperson, with practically no journalistic experience could do a better job than Assange did. In fact, I'm certain of that.
That's disqualifying. He didn't even try.
“...Assange wrote that WikiLeaks would consider recommendations made by the International Security Assistance Force "on the identification of innocents for this material if it is willing to provide reviewers."
That’s from your salon.com article.
So Assange would “consider” redacting (not promising anything) and only if a group from the United Nations identified “innocent” names. There’s no mention that the Pentagon has any input at all. And there’s no reason to think anyone at the ISA should know the names of undercover intelligence agents in those documents, especially the documents completely unrelated to Afghanistan... since the ISA was involved only with issues in Afghanistan.
Manning could have told Assange which names were the names of US government officials. (In fact, I'd be surprised if Manning didn't actually do just that; on your own theory of who should be held accountable it would be irresponsible not to.)
We're not. We're talking about Assange. He can still be at fault and worthy of blame for some things he did, even if the US government is also worthy of blame for some things it did.
And that's exactly the problem. No wonder they're still free today while Julian's not.
It is not really a matter for an extradition judge to rule on whether what Assange did falls under press freedom. The US courts would have to decide that. If however the case had been identical but coming from China, the judge would still not have ruled on press freedom, but would have likely considered that the Chinese constitution and court precedents do not offer sufficient guarantees that there would actually be a fair trial, unlike in the US system.
Whether you agree with this point or not is another matter, but I don't see the ruling as being either for or against press freedom, by my understanding.
Of course, they do have to be charges for something which would be illegal in some way in the UK as well. If the US criminalized ice cream consumption, you would not be able to extradite someone in the UK for having consumed ice cream in the USA, of course. But this is not the same as, say, extraditing someone accused of murder in the USA who is not known to have been physically there - the extradition judge may be ok in not looking at the evidence that the charges are based on (except maybe to ascertain whether they may be a sign of a politically-motivated trial).
Would that be enough for housing, airline tickets (back to europe), and the trial/lawyers/bail/court fees in the US?
If frivolous extradition/trial would ruin me financially, I'd rather extradition procedure took the credibility/frivolousness of charges into account...
Whether the actions Assange took amount or not to espionage and illegal access to computer systems is a matter for a fair trial to decide, not the extradition judge. I happen to believe that they did not in any way, but it should be a jury trial that decides that, not an extradition judge in the UK.