> The Stundin article continued:
> ‘With regards to the actual accusations made in the indictment Baraitser sided with the arguments of the American legal team, including citing the specific samples from Iceland which are now seriously called into question.
That charge was completely absent from the case until the US decided it needed to strengthen its case and added it last-minute. So clearly they disagree with you, otherwise they would have kept it out (knowing the background of the individual involved). And again, why would the judge refer to it specifically in siding with the US if it were so unimportant?
The title for this link is exaggerated at least.
That's not about this news story.
"These dramatic revelations emerged in an extensive article published on 26 June in Stundin."
Has the NYT covered them?
Here's an NYT search showing everything they published with the term "Assange" in the last month: https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&endDate=2021070...
There's a lot going on in the world, not everything can be covered urgently in a general interest publication. They don't have unlimited reporters.
Edward Snowden said: "This is the end of the case against Julian Assange."
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1408847450656415751
I find it hard to believe the media would be silent if similar revelations came to light about anyone else.
I agree with Media Lens:
> in a sane world, Stundin’s revelations about a key Assange witness – that Thordarson lied in exchange for immunity from prosecution – would have been headline news everywhere, with extensive media coverage on BBC News at Six and Ten, ITV News, Channel 4 News, front-page stories in the Times, Telegraph, the Guardian and more. The silence is quite extraordinary; and disturbing.
Everybody is a critic of what the MSM is covering. They cover what is interesting. It isn’t a giant conspiracy to explain their behavior.
His extradition hearing to see if this charge can be tried is currently facing an appeal, and he is still in prison partially for this charge.
And it is getting coverage! It just isn’t front page news.
And it isn't getting any major oublisher coverage, searching "Julian Assange" on both DDG and Google news shows only Democracy Now covering the story.
Yes, the USA is charging him. It would be very odd for extradition hearings on US federal charges to be heard in a US court, and, in fact, these are not. Assange is not on trial, and the process he is currently undergoing in is not in an American court, though there are charges pending that he would face in a US court if that process completes as the US prefers.
I can see you arguing that that's not important, but falsely denying the assertion that its not in a US court is...I mean, what's even the point?
> I can see you arguing that that's not important, but falsely denying the assertion that its not in a US court is...I mean, what's even the point?
I am arguing that it is important and view the extradition hearing as part of his larger US trial. His trial for skipping bail in the UK is long over, the only trial left is the US one.
The extradition hearing is factually not part of his US trial.
> the only trial left is the US one.
The US charges are the only ones that he is currently known to be facing a potential future trial for, sure. But “potential future” and “actual current” are not the same thing.
I'd write this off as weird pedantry but you're accusing me of lying for some reason.
No, that's neither the first step of the process (even the formal legal process) nor any step of the trial.
All of this seems like parts of the pretrial layed out by the US constitutional criminal procedure. I guess you could distinguish trial from pretrial, but if that was your point you really could have just stated that right away.
It doesn't matter whether it's the "first" step or an "early" step. It doesn't matter if the entire process is being summed up as "trial", even though parts of the process are not technically part of the trail.
> Edward Snowden said: "This is the end of the case against Julian Assange."
What does Snowden know? He's not a lawyer of any sort.
You're treating him like he's some generic authority, who's pronouncements on any subject carry weight. That's weird.
I think your response is not weird but disingenuous.
>> What does Snowden know? He's not a lawyer of any sort.
> He is broadly considered a generic authority based on his long, deep thinking and publications about leaks and legal consequences.
Maybe so, but I wouldn't hire him as my lawyer or rely on his judgements about when a legal case will fail.
It's the difference between thinking about the consequences of a technology and building/operating that technology. For instance, someone might be an expert on the pernicious social effects of Facebook, but would flame out if they actually worked as a developer there. Snowden more than likely doesn't have the technical knowledge of the British legal system for him to reliably tell the difference between a major and minor development, let alone make trustworthy prediction about the future outcome of the whole thing.
> "These dramatic revelations emerged in an extensive article published on 26 June in Stundin."
> Has the NYT covered them?
I think the point is that the Assange story isn't that important or interesting anymore, so they don't breathlessly cover every development like some corners of the internet want to (and sometimes interpret the lack of breathless coverage as some kind of conspiracy).
Do you realize that it's not hyperbole to say press freedom in the United States hinges on this case? American journalists have always been protected from prosecution for publishing factual information. If Assange is convicted, he will be the first. That would fundamentally change freedom of the press in the US.
What Manning did was illegal whether you agree with her motivations or not. Soliciting someone with clearance to leak information and assisting them in the process is also illegal. It doesn't matter if Assange's assistance was effective or not.
If all Assange did was publish information Manning brought to him, there would likely be no charges and they'd be easily dismissed otherwise. He'd have been clearly acting in the role as a journalist. But that's not what happened.
Assange wants to be considered a journalist (with its protections) while at the same time playing spymaster and hacker.
It's pretty standard to be friendly to people who spy for you, and hostile to those who spy against you. If the FBI catches a Russian spy who doesn't have diplomatic cover, that person is going to get prosecuted (and if they do have cover they'll become persona non grata and expelled); ditto if the Russians catch an American spy.
Except for expulsion of diplomats, arrests of agents, sanctions against government officials, indictments for officials and agents, and of course war.
Besides all of those things that happen all the time nobody prosecutes spy agencies. eyeroll
Assange is a self-styled spymaster that's not actually very good at the job. Spies that go around advertising their spying and bragging about conspiracies of which they are a part are not good spies.
He's charged with both.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assa...
Criminal No. 1:18-cr-l 11 (CMH)Count 1: 18 U.S.C.§ 793(g)Conspiracy To Receive National DefenseInformation
Counts 2-4:18 U.S.C. § 793(b) and 2Obtaining National Defense Information
Counts 5-8: 18 U.S.C. § 793(c) and 2Obtaining National Defense Information
Counts 9-11: 18 U.S.C. § 793(d) and 2Disclosure of National Defense Information
Counts 12-14: 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) and 2Disclosure of National Defense Information
Counts 15-17: 18 U.S.C. § 793(e)Disclosure of National Defense Information
Count 18: 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 1030Conspiracy To Commit Computer Intrusion
Independently intent would be a difficult thing to prove but his public actions and the conspiracy charges with will be used to establish intent. Like I said, he wants to claim all of the protections of journalism while he's acting as a spymaster.
I don't really think it's possible to claim (objectively) any of Assange's actions with Wikileaks could be considered journalism. Besides not really practicing anything that might be considered journalism he also exercised a lot of editorial control in what Wikileaks didn't or wouldn't publish.
If that were actually the case, I'd expect the kind of breathless coverage from the rest of the press that Assange's fans are clamoring for. So it's either...
1. there's a conspiracy afoot, and the press (as a whole) is deliberately coordinating amongst themselves to suppress this significant development, because they're all in the pocket of... etc., etc.;
2. the mainstream press are all dumbasses who don't know the difference between their head and a hole in the ground; or...
3. it is hyperbole to say press freedom in the United States hinges on this case.
My bet is with the latter. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like the far safer bet.
“For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration's attacks on journalism, and a direct assault on the First Amendment. It establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets. And it is equally dangerous for U.S. journalists who uncover the secrets of other nations. If the US can prosecute a foreign publisher for violating our secrecy laws, there’s nothing preventing China, or Russia, from doing the same.”
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-julian-assa...
"Don’t let the misdirection around “blown informants” fool you—this case is nothing less than the first time in American history that the US government has sought to prosecute the act of publishing state secrets, something that national security reporters do with some regularity."
https://www.cjr.org/opinion/assange-extradition-espionage-ac...
"For the sake of press freedom, Julian Assange must be defended"
https://cpj.org/2019/12/press-freedom-julian-assange-wikilea...
"The most dangerous press freedom issue of 2020 is Trump’s prosecution of Julian Assange"
https://freedom.press/news/the-most-dangerous-press-freedom-...
"The US should never have brought the case against the WikiLeaks founder. This attack on press freedom must be rejected"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/18/the-gu...
"The U.S. Government’s Indictment of Julian Assange Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom. The Trump DOJ is exploiting animosity toward Assange to launch a thinly disguised effort to criminalize core functions of investigative journalism."
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indi...
That he is in any way involved with the case on the US govt side is extremely unsettling. Especially if he were given immunity child rape for any testimony.
The claim about Assange guiding Manning that Thordarson is testifying too is definitely a major piece of most of the related court cases.
I've said this before: Assange dabbled in espionage without a Nation-State backer and is experiencing the repercussions of that gamble. Right or wrong the realpolitik is what Assange is living now.
> Except, Siggi retracts nothing substantive that is alleged in the indictment, so this drama is instead a demand that you accept the word of a liar rather than read the documents to show that the liar’s claims are irrelevant to the charges against Assange.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/06/27/wikileaks-and-edward-s...
(I really don't know anything about the case so I don't have an opinion, other than to be reflexively skeptical of sweeping claims of conspiracy)
Different people have different levels of access to ensuring media coverage, in part because of biases in those media outlets.