Hacker News Reader

Comment by ComputerGuru | Hacker News Reader

The kicker is the final paragraph:

> To date, no federal law enforcement officials have contacted the young group member.

If this is real, it’s insane that WaPo beat the DoJ to get to these people.

Also, how stupid are these kids to publicly talk to reporters about their involvement and receiving state secrets (the kid requested his voice not be masked!!). People have been imprisoned for receiving classified information and this is one heck of a clown show the DoJ will want to appear completely on top of.

For real, guys: don’t talk to police or reporters or anyone when you’re involved in a mess (even one much smaller than this). Get a lawyer and learn how to say “no comment!”

View on HN

I guarantee these people are are under surveillance. The FBI likely knows a lot more than WaPo reports. Part of the process is to make sure you get everyone and get your arms around the entire leak.

I'm just impressed at the lack of control the DoD has over such sensitive information. It's incredible that this went on for so long. It does not leave me with a lot of confidence that they are competent enough to protect Americas secrets.

Law enforcement/IC always moves slower in these sorts of things than journalism.

Often because the FBI/spies prefer reading their emails and catching them surreptitiously before making overt plays, since they already know the latter will remain a sure thing if they wanted. At least until they get forced to play their hands by journos and public pressure. Or maybe they did already and the friends are privy to it.

Or just as likely we over value the competence of government workers.

After all that has transpired you think they're secretly on top of this?

I would imagine that the FBI can get the logs of that entire Discord, no?

They can ask nicely

They can do far more than ask nicely.

At a minimum, they can get a warrant and/or use provisions of the Patriot Act and similar. And for this it's likely warranted.

Even discussing this in the future tense is a bit weird, there's no way they don't _already_ have everything Discord does.

USA has laws such as the cloud act or patriot act for that, so I would expect them to be able to get the data or to become very upset and make sure that they will never lack data from discord anymore.

IANAL, but AFAIU:

The non-military citizens in the group are not breaking any law by possessing, discussing, or even distributing the classified material, as long as they didn't commit a crime to obtain it. It's protected speech, just like when WaPo published the Pentagon papers. However, despite no criminal liability, they could possibly be sued by the government.

On the other hand, the leaker, or anyone with a clearance, cannot legally possess or distribute the documents.

My understanding is that the Espionage Act literally continues not to allow other parties to possess or distribute classified documents, even if they weren't involved in the original leak. However, some observers have doubted that courts would agree that the strictest reading comports with the first amendment, if they actually had to decide the question.

I've also heard that, in recent decades, Federal prosecutors have not brought Espionage Act charges directly against those they agreed were acting as journalists, although they have been willing to try to force them to reveal the identity of their sources. (There are also court decisions limiting "prior restraint" of publication of classified material, e.g. via a court injunction, but that doesn't necessarily equate to prohibiting people from being punished for doing so after the fact.)

>My understanding is that the Espionage Act literally continues not to allow other parties to possess or distribute classified documents, even if they weren't involved in the original leak. However, some observers have doubted that courts would agree that the strictest reading comports with the first amendment, if they actually had to decide the question.

My impression is that it's very much a "leak one document, you have a problem, leak a million documents, the feds have a problem" situation wherein they'll happily prosecute people when the situation is mundane enough it won't draw serious scrutiny but when something is a media spectacle they don't tend to go hard except against the initial leaker.

Even born secrets?

That’s not correct. If you say find a cache of classified documents on the street or on some open FTP site and you sell it to China or leak it to the public you’ll be charged under the espionage act.

In general distribution of classified materials even those which have already been leaked is technically an offense.

The question is how likely you are to be prosecuted and in general found guilty.

So sharing a photo of a leaked document that was already been made public especially in the press on Twitter is probably ok form a legal perspective (unless you hold or plan to hold security clearance or a federal government job) but being in on it from the get go would likely land you a charge as a co conspirator under the espionage act.

Bullshit. You're just making things up. The actions you describe are generally not illegal. This is settled law at least since New York Times Co. v. United States.

"I'm a journalist."

What now?

Freedom of the press isn’t the be all and end all. There are legal tests that a court can perform to measure these things.

And this has already been tested in court.

And how did it go? Are the journalists in jail?

>> It's protected speech, just like when WaPo published the Pentagon papers

Also not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the Pentagon Papers case was about "prior restraint", meaning the government tried to prevent the Washington Post from publishing the information. They still could have been charged under existing laws on distributing classified information after publishing, the government considered that but did not charge them. And prior restraint is not always prohibited, the courts just decided that in the Pentagon Papers case, it was not appropriate.

Anyone involved in the leak in any way should only be talking to their lawyer right now.

Julian Assange would disagree. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

IIUC, Assange is charged with hacking as opposed to leaking.

The fact that he's charged with hacking (merits aside) as opposed to leaking is proof that non-military citizens are indeed not breaking the law.

Per the article he is also charged re: the espionage act.

In May 2019 and June 2020, the United States government unsealed new indictments against Assange, charging him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and alleging a history of conspiring with hackers.

> ...charging him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and alleging a history of conspiring with hackers.

Conspiring to acquire classified information is quite different than merely possessing or distributing it.

The claim is that he assisted Manning et al with hacking in violation of the espionage act.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assa...

https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o

By admitting that they knew these documents were classified and did nothing they have now broken the law. If they shut up, they can plead ignorance “oh I figured it was role play, why would I trust stuff on the internet, etc”.

It is never in your interest to talk to anyone in cases like these. Get a Lawyer on retainer and wait.

Nope. Please explain which "law" you think they have broken? Let's have a specific citation of the US criminal code and relevant case law please.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

Sections C through F. I'm unsure of relevant case law, it may be untested, but it's part of the charges against Julian Assange.

I take it you're unfamiliar with the case law established in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971).

The case which ruled they couldn't use the law to bar publication of classified documents? I'm not sure if that's relevant when charging an individual. The government certainly doesn't think so, hence the ongoing indictment against Assange.

Wrong again. Read the actual indictment.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-sup...

Your link is the DoJ summary of the indictment, if you read the attached actual indictment they reference title 18 section 793 for count 1 then 3-18. Reading the indictment is how I found the relevant law.

Read it again. The core of the indictment is for conspiracy and incitement. If Assange had merely received unsolicited classified information and published it then he wouldn't have been indicted.

It repeatedly says that Assange "knowingly and unlawfully received documents" in charges 5-8. Something it could be argued these people did too.

And trying to argue "the law itself can be used to charge people, but not the subsections that clearly apply in this case despite the lack of case law striking them down" is silly. Those laws are on the books, and being used in an indictment. They definitely could be charged, though probably won't be.

Assuming that most of what was in the article is true, then I guarantee that the government now knows exactly who the leaker is and has no need to contact the person who was the source for this article. Message logs, ip addresses, user account info, and whatever else needed to identify this person all exists on Discord's servers, and I doubt law enforcement will have any trouble getting access to it (assuming they didn't already have it through other channels).

To get into a legal mess like this makes me think they didn’t give much thought to ramifications and consequences in the first place.

If the only contact the kid had with the leaker was through Discord, the FBI already knows literally everything the kid knows. If the leaker is on the run, perhaps they’re hoping the kid might keep talking to the leaker and lead them to him. He told the reporter already that he won’t cooperate with the FBI to catch the leaker.

Not saying it's the case here but for these kind of investigations it's a classic technique of law enforcement to play dumb. These people might very well be monitored 24/7 to collect further evidence while they think they're safe

What I don‘t get about the not talking to the police stuff is that it destroys all your plausible deniability. I get that if everyone would do it it would probably be great but realistically I don‘t see it being the optimal strategy in all cases

IANAL, but “plausible deniability” isn’t a thing that I’m aware of. Best not to confuse conversational English with sound legal strategy.

Plausible deniability ~= source of reasonable doubt in a jury case, which criminal cases fundamentally are.

The bar to convict is "beyond a reasonable doubt". It's not as far a stretch of a colloquialidm as you think, though I'd second your caution around ever relying upon it as a legal strategy, as you have no guarantees that your jury will see plausible the same you do.

>People have been imprisoned for receiving classified information

In the United States? I doubt it. See the Pentagon Papers case.

Receiving or reading classified documents is not illegal.

It is if you ask for them; you become an co-conspirator in the distribution.

If you receive them unsolicited you have broken no law.

What if you ask for them but kinda jokingly like you have no actual expectation of getting them. For example my next line I will ask for them.

Pass me secret documents.

Now, my question - did I just break the law? Or am I only breaking the law if someone responds with secret documents?

I guess if you are given secrets documents and you accept them, open them, or redistribute them you are guilty.

If you just say "oh no sorry I don’t actually want your secret documents, that was just a joke" and move on, you are fine.

You guess wrong and do not understand the actual laws. Try again.

Thankfully I don't have to.

The law requires intent: "Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798

So it would be up to a prosecutor and jury to determine your state of mind.

Who is in prison for receiving classified information?

Edgy teens aren’t going to brag to a LEO, they’re going to brag to whomever gets them the most in-clique upvotes.

I’m sure WaPo was second after not getting a response from Mr. QAnon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com