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US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media

346 points by rrgmitchell 7y ago

skilled 7y ago
Apparently not big enough of a threat to organize protests as big as those in Hong Kong right now.
ryanmercer 7y ago
There's a pretty big difference between: 'free media' and 'doxing individuals who's identities were protected because if they are publicly revealed not only are their lives at serious risk but it also exposes their close family and friends to rape/murder/torture until a time at which they are found and violently murdered because terrorists and hostile governments actually do this sort of thing to their perceived enemies, just like what happened to journalists (not informants/spies) like Jamal Khashoggi and many of the REAL journalists listed at https://cpj.org/data/killed/ https://cpj.org/data/killed/ '
- syn0byte 7y ago
  The irony in your argument is absolutely breath taking. The footage of the US Military murdering a dozen people, of which 2 worked for the press, was part of leaks for which he now faces charges. "How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."
  - cyphar 7y ago
    Not to mention the evidence of the US government lying about the numbers of civilian casualties (read: murders), or the many examples of money laundering, and tit-for-tat deals. The idea that nothing was gained from the Afghan/Iraqi war logs alone is beyond ridiculous. Let alone the mountains of other leaks they published before and since.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    You can release that information and still redact the names of private individuals that are informants/spies so that you aren't signing their gruesome death sentence at the hands of the 'enemy'...
  - foldr 7y ago
    No, the comment refers to Wikileaks releasing the names of American informants in Iraq, potentially endangering their lives.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      Future WikiLeak publications took more care redacting documents (even asking the US State Department for advice). So I disagree with what WikiLeaks did in that instance, and it's clear they adjusted their ways. But it should also be made very clear that there is zero evidence that anyone was harmed as a result of the leak. Yes, this may have been luck or lots of effort by the US State Department, but it still something to consider.
      - foldr 7y ago
        That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information. I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government! They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video. >even asking the US State Department for advice A disingenuous request. >and it's clear they adjusted their ways. This is actually far from clear.
        pluma 7y ago
        I'm not sure if that's your point but the US clearly have not mended their ways and continually violate international human rights by killing, torturing and illegally detaining people.
        cyphar 7y ago
        > That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information. I said that I disagree with what that aspect of what they did, and had I been in that situation I would've redacted many more things. But I agree with their publishing of the documents. I'm not sure what response you'd like me to have -- call for him to be in prison for the rest of his life? > I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government! They are the most powerful government in the world, and are blatantly violating the Nuremberg convention and their own constitution. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are not. > They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video. They haven't claimed that (Obama claimed that they "tortured folks" and have stopped, but Guantanamo Bay is still "open for business"). But even if they did claim it, we have plenty of evidence they haven't. But we do have evidence that WikiLeaks did start redacting more documents -- because many of their subsequent leaks had more heavily redacted documents. > A disingenuous request. So what would've made you happy? That they don't publish anything? Newspapers ask the government to help redact leaked documents all the time (the Guardian even did line-by-line redactions of the Snowden documents with GCHQ). I really don't understand what your bar for "responsible journalism" is, if doing what other journalists do is not enough.
josefresco 7y ago
Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the people.
- ANPEQ-1 7y ago
  Thank you. There is such thing as legitimate secrets. The threat of jail for wholesale and thoughtless release of top secret information... is a good threat. Professional journalists know this and shouldn't jump on the Assange bandwagon; they understand that their power comes a duty of care.
  - rplst8 7y ago
    Secrets are just that, secrets. Not some legally protected object. If you don't want your secrets getting out, then don't tell people them, or better yet - don't do bad things. Making secrets legally protected for those that have not signed an NDA and do not participate in government inner-workings or aren't even citizens of that country is a dangerous precedent that erodes the first amendment. What would stop a government from making something "classified" ex post facto just to silence and/or jail nay-sayers, political opponents, or oppressed peoples? The answer is nothing, and this is exactly why this cannot stand.
    - deleted 7y ago
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    - jmpman 7y ago
      So, a journalist could publish the design documents for the F-35? The newest hydrogen bomb? Information on how we are spying on the North Koreans? Proof that military intelligence isn’t always 100% correct and has bombed groups incorrectly? Proof that we are spying on suspected terrorists who have recently been granted US citizenship? I believe there is a line somewhere in the above scenarios, and journalists are responsible for determining where that line exists. Assange appears to have a different interpretation of where that line is from the US government officials.
spsrich2 7y ago
Amazing the guardian are complaining. Their editorial line usually comes from MI6
mc32 7y ago
I wish people would just focus on the part that regards journalism, free press, free speech, sources and releasing leaked information. All the rest will fall along political lines. Liked or disliked for the effects on political allies and foes. It’s obvious if you have followed this case. Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved him. The state apparatus however still see this as an adversarial act. So, instead let’s discuss the implications of censorship (state and self-imposed) and journalism this case has.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  I disagree; much of the right still seems to be calling for him to be locked away for a long time despite his role in getting Trump elected. Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - rplst8 7y ago
    The OP's point is that many people have flipped their positions on this topic - particularly when it suits them politically.
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    > Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped. I really don't think this is true. The Guardian is more acutely aware of the threat this poses to general protections afforded journalists (even outside the U.S.) Assange's reputation is putting an unfortunate taint to the story; if we separate the man from what's actually being done in the criminal charges, it's probably a lot clearer to people from both sides of the aisle that this is a threat to the fourth estate.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    True, many leftist news organizations have been consistently defending him and calling this out as an attack on free speech. For example, the Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, etc.
dharma1 7y ago
The extradition request was just signed by the UK home secretary - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024 Now the court system will decide over the coming months/years whether or not to hand him over to the US, where he has a good chance of being imprisoned for a very long time.
- sschueller 7y ago
  I think that just means the request valid (correctly filled out form). If it is legal gets decided in the courts.
  - makomk 7y ago
    It means that the current government has decided they want to support his extradition on these grounds. That's why the Home Secretary has to approve the request - there's a political aspect to extradition.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
Better late than never. The appropriate time for an article like this and coming to his defense would have been last month when Assange moved from the Ecuadorian embassy to a UK prison. Especially considering that they benefited from collaborating with Assange and wikileaks for the very same things he's currently being held prison (and lets not get started on the BS. charges from Sweden). The Guardian would do well to call on the UK government to release this man immediately.
- cyphar 7y ago
  Really, the right time was 7 years ago. Last month was the last time it would've been possible to do anything about it at all. Now it is beyond too late -- it's a travesty of justice. Once he's shipped to the US there is effectively nothing we can do (other than hope a future president commutes his sentence before they torture him to death or insanity). IIRC the District Court of Virginia has never ruled in favour of the defendant in cases involving the Espionage Act -- which is why they prosecute all whistleblowers there. The idea he is going to have a fair trial is laughable.
- lordlimecat 7y ago
  Assange isn't in a UK prison because of leaking documents, but because he jumped bail.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    Pretending this has nothing to do with Wikileaks is very disingenuous/naive. The Swedes would likely have quickly dropped the case if they hadn't been pressured by the US to not do so. The amount of press this case got in Sweden almost from day 1 was very unusual. The Swedes normally don't commit character murder like this without a trial. Yet, Assange was named and shamed in public, lots of details were leaked, and when the prosecutor dropped the case, she was overruled. It's not normal for high level politicians to get involved with cases like this in Sweden. From what I understand, it was never actually a really strong case. Yet, the Swedes went all out on this. Likewise, the UK would never have put as much effort in pursuing such a minor matter had it not been for the Wikileaks thing. Nor would the Ecuadorians have considered hosting him for seven years. Both the US and UK have repeatedly pressured Sweden to not drop their extradition request and arrest warrant. The fact that he's now being extradited to the US rather than Sweden only confirms that Wikileaks is the only reason all this stuff happened to Assange. Otherwise he'd be on his way to Sweden now. This was about the Swedish extradition request right until he walked out of the embassy.
magwa101 7y ago
Title response, no it's not.
- Youcandothis 7y ago
  If journalists are imprisoned, then it is.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  This is reductive and not particularly useful. If the dissemination of information in this way is itself criminalized it puts shackles on the media's abilities to provide insight into the inner workings of the government.
levelist_com 7y ago
Except that Assange isn't a fucking journalist, so... He is, however, a Russian asset/tool/stooge that used stolen information to help Donald Trump get elected.
- mr_overalls 7y ago
  Exactly. He willingly participated in a Russian cyber/disinformation attack on the US electoral system. Whatever journalistic bona fides he once possessed are long gone.
  - sigzero 7y ago
    I don't think he ever had any "journalistic bona fides" to begin with.
  - whamlastxmas 7y ago
    Where's the proof of this?
    - mr_overalls 7y ago
      https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-russias-useful-idiot-its-agent-influence/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18...
      - whamlastxmas 7y ago
        >The precise nature of WikiLeaks’ relationship to Moscow is not publicly known. A PolitiFact analysis found a documented pattern in which both parties’ interests appeared to align. Elements of the relationship might be clarified in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, though a full accounting of their possible coordination may never be known. In other words: this is all speculation, there's no evidence of coordination other than it looking like it for people who are already wanting that as their narrative. We don't know Wikileak's source. Assange has said it wasn't a state actor or Russia and he has a flawless track record for the information he provides. There's not even a real level of reliability in knowing who hacked the DNC or Hillary servers. The servers were never given to law enforcement to look at, and there are details in the story that don't add up to it being an external party that took the data.
cyphar 7y ago
I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day". Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What kind of a message does that send? They also didn't tell anyone involved in the Snowden revelations when GCHQ forced them to destroy their copies. They also (through their tehnical incompetence) leaked documents that WikiLeaks had not published, then blamed WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for the disclosure. Not to mention the ludicrously false and harmful articles they published about him meeting Manafort and co-ordinating disclosures with the Trump campaign alongside many other government puff pieces disguised as "journalism". Now, all of a sudden, they feel it's a good idea to try to help him. It's too late for that. The right time to try to help him was 7 years ago. Doing it now is for the birds, it's pure political theater so they can pretend (in 15 years) that they were "on the right side of history". Absolute bullshit. Then again, saying something is better than nothing. Here in Australia there is no public discussion about Julian Assange (an Australian citizen and journalist being tried under US terrorism laws). Even more ironic is that we recently had a bit of a "freedom of the press" scuffle because the ABC was raided by the Australian Federal Police because of some coverage from 2017 over Australian Army war crimes. I find it incredible that nobody mentioned Julian. At all. What an absolute disgrace today's press is. [1]: https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255 https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255
- creaghpatr 7y ago
  And in fact, the Guardian published a blatently false story about Manafort holding "secret talks" with Assange, which they incredibly have still not retracted, despite literally zero evidence to back up this extraordinary claim. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...
  - spikels 7y ago
    That story was clearly fake. The Guardian reporter and his source have both proven to be unreliable in the past, no other newspaper could confirm the claims and the Special Council looked into it and found nothing. And the Guardian has now “re-establish[ed] links” with British military/intelligence after their breakup post-Snowden: https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304640 https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304... Much of our media now coordinates and sources stories from national intelligence services. This has been true with some of the biggest stories of the past few years - many of which failed to pan out. So in some important cases our “news” has been literally government propaganda.
duxup 7y ago
I don't really buy it. The crime he was accused of by the US is helping someone try to break into a laptop. That's beyond most journalistic standards for conduct and a criminal act. We'll see what can be proved in court from here.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  You're behind. That was one charge. That charge doesn't really matter anymore. It wasn't really the attack on freedom of the press that the new charges are. He's now being charged under the Espionage act for asking for classified info and publishing it. The new charges are what matter and what everyone is talking about.
- cyphar 7y ago
  He is also being accused of 17 counts of breaching the Espionage Act with a maximum sentence of several lifetimes in prison. The conspiracy to break the CFAA charge was just the taster -- and I would argue that it was done tactically so that the discussion of Julian would be "he's a hacker not a journalist". If I was working for the DoJ that's without question what I would've done -- whether the accusations were true or not. We live in a society based on the presumption of innocence. Just because the US government says something (which happens to be incredibly helpful for their narrative) does not make it true. Also, he wasn't accused of trying to break into a laptop. He was accused of allegedly offering to help Chelsea Manning crack a password hash (which he never did). Aside from the fact that johntheripper is free software and is so trivial to use that teenagers know about it (making the entire story seem suspect on its face) it completely ignores that this is ridiculously minor compared to the Espionage Act indictments.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Which should be legal since the US does breach privacy around the world (with the help of his awfully quite home country). So I don't see the justification to prosecute him. Of course governmental data of the US isn't protected from non-citizen access. Why should it, these are the rules they themselves set. It is naive to think that governmental actors have an advantage at espionage. On the contrary. The most advantages has anyone without critical secrets.
leftyted 7y ago
It remains to be seen whether the charges under the Espionage Act stick. They may not and I don't think they should. But it seems a bit breathless to declare these charges a "threat to journalism". Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing. There's a sharp divide in how people view Assange. Some buy into his hipster-tech-Jesus persona. These people think the rape (read: surreptitious condom removal) allegations were materialized by the US government, somehow overlooking the fact that nearly everyone who has interacted with Assange has a negative opinion of him personally (see - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting). I see Assange as a tragic figure. Publishing the "Collateral Murder" video was good. But Assange's worldview is basically incoherent. "All information should be open" is a naive position and there's a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia. When you publish everything, you're obviously putting yourself in a position in which you can be used. Further, states are allowed to have secrets for the same reason people are allowed to have secrets. It isn't possible for governments to conduct foreign policy with everything in the open. Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame. I'd contrast Assange with Daniel Ellsberg rather than comparing them as this article does. That said, I think the US government would have been better off not pursuing him at all. Now that they have him, I hope he just gets a slap on the wrist.
- cyphar 7y ago
  > Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing. This is an accusation made by the US government, it's not a fact. WikiLeaks accepted leaked documents and published them after verifying they were true. This is basically what journalists do (though they usually write articles that summarise the leaks). Also, WikiLeaks did redact documents on many ocassions (in some cases even asking the US State Department what information should not be published). Everyone remembers the mostly-unredacted leaks of the war logs, but most people haven't followed up and seen that they did start redacting more things after the backlash. Though they never redacted sources or methods because those things have proven to help people in the past.
  - 7y ago
jtr_47 7y ago
What I don't understand is the the following. 1. Julian is not a United States of America Citizen. So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind 2. Julian is a citizen of another country. How do the laws of USA all of a sudden encompass people outside of the USA? Yes, wikileaks did receive "secret" stuff, but the exposure of these events is for the greater good and exposes how the USA is corrupt and "evil." The USA needs to be held accountable for their actions. The USA has no business in other countries, killing, maiming, destroying their homes and lives. Regardless of what happened on 9/11, which I was present on NYC when it happened. Yes, it was horrible, but our own government and their meddling in the affairs of other nations is to blame Is there some kind of unknown laws of the USA that apply to people and countries not part of the USA (non-citizens and other countries)? Peace
- deleted 7y ago
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- roywiggins 7y ago
  The US doesn't care much where you physically are when you commit a crime against the US. For instance, if you conspire to traffic drugs into the US, the US can come after you. It doesn't matter if you're physically in the US or not when you do it. If an estranged noncitizen parent living abroad conspires to kidnap his children from their custodial parent inside the US, he can be tried for kidnapping by the US. Even if his part of the conspiracy never takes place inside the US. The alternative- just letting him off, due to where he happened to physically be at the time- would be fairly absurd. The jurisdiction he's physically in probably doesn't care, and even if they do, most of the witnesses and all of the victims are physically in the US. The US can't kidnap him but asking the jurisdiction he is in to extradite him is totally normal. This is what extradition agreements are for, in part.
- bbatha 7y ago
  Personally I believe the charges levied by the US have been trumped up, and even if they were true the offense were minor and this amounts to overzealous prosecution. So putting aside for a second whether the charges against Assange are valid or not. This is the line of reasoning being used: 1) Assange allegedly assisted in hacking US Defense Department computers. The means that he allegedly broke US laws on virtual US soil. They are also alleging that he was a conspirator that directed crimes on US soil via his agent, Manning. If he say hacked a Russian computer and the US was prosecuting him it would be a different story. 2) The US and UK have very strong extradition treaties and will generally extradite with very few questions asked. In most cases the legal systems of the US and UK are trustworthy and compatible enough for this to be a fairly reasonable thing. Again ignoring the specifics of this case, these general principles of law are generally good. The US, and international community have a strong interest in protecting their assets. If you want to virtually strike at a country in a targeted attack you should be prepared to face the consequences -- sitting in another country while you perform it is not a valid excuse. Imagine a more clear cut case, some Russian hacker group hacks a US bank and steals millions of dollars, that seems reasonable to prosecute right?
bufferoverflow 7y ago
Ironically, TheGuardian is smearing Jordan Peterson's new free speech platform before it even launched. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-peterson-launches-anti-censorship-site-thinkspot https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-pe...

346 points by rrgmitchell 7y ago

Apparently not big enough of a threat to organize protests as big as those in Hong Kong right now.

There's a pretty big difference between: 'free media' and 'doxing individuals who's identities were protected because if they are publicly revealed not only are their lives at serious risk but it also exposes their close family and friends to rape/murder/torture until a time at which they are found and violently murdered because terrorists and hostile governments actually do this sort of thing to their perceived enemies, just like what happened to journalists (not informants/spies) like Jamal Khashoggi and many of the REAL journalists listed at https://cpj.org/data/killed/ https://cpj.org/data/killed/ '

syn0byte 7y ago
The irony in your argument is absolutely breath taking. The footage of the US Military murdering a dozen people, of which 2 worked for the press, was part of leaks for which he now faces charges. "How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."
- cyphar 7y ago
  Not to mention the evidence of the US government lying about the numbers of civilian casualties (read: murders), or the many examples of money laundering, and tit-for-tat deals. The idea that nothing was gained from the Afghan/Iraqi war logs alone is beyond ridiculous. Let alone the mountains of other leaks they published before and since.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  You can release that information and still redact the names of private individuals that are informants/spies so that you aren't signing their gruesome death sentence at the hands of the 'enemy'...
- foldr 7y ago
  No, the comment refers to Wikileaks releasing the names of American informants in Iraq, potentially endangering their lives.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    Future WikiLeak publications took more care redacting documents (even asking the US State Department for advice). So I disagree with what WikiLeaks did in that instance, and it's clear they adjusted their ways. But it should also be made very clear that there is zero evidence that anyone was harmed as a result of the leak. Yes, this may have been luck or lots of effort by the US State Department, but it still something to consider.
    - foldr 7y ago
      That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information. I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government! They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video. >even asking the US State Department for advice A disingenuous request. >and it's clear they adjusted their ways. This is actually far from clear.
      - pluma 7y ago
        I'm not sure if that's your point but the US clearly have not mended their ways and continually violate international human rights by killing, torturing and illegally detaining people.
      - cyphar 7y ago
        > That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information. I said that I disagree with what that aspect of what they did, and had I been in that situation I would've redacted many more things. But I agree with their publishing of the documents. I'm not sure what response you'd like me to have -- call for him to be in prison for the rest of his life? > I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government! They are the most powerful government in the world, and are blatantly violating the Nuremberg convention and their own constitution. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are not. > They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video. They haven't claimed that (Obama claimed that they "tortured folks" and have stopped, but Guantanamo Bay is still "open for business"). But even if they did claim it, we have plenty of evidence they haven't. But we do have evidence that WikiLeaks did start redacting more documents -- because many of their subsequent leaks had more heavily redacted documents. > A disingenuous request. So what would've made you happy? That they don't publish anything? Newspapers ask the government to help redact leaked documents all the time (the Guardian even did line-by-line redactions of the Snowden documents with GCHQ). I really don't understand what your bar for "responsible journalism" is, if doing what other journalists do is not enough.

josefresco 7y ago

Just because Assange did one (or more) good things (Collateral Murder) does not make everything else he does, also good. Assange is not a journalist, and ceased being a journalist when he decided to enforce personal agendas and arguably work with nation-states to harm other nation-states. Even if you believe he's a journalist, journalists should not be above the law even if part of their work is for the good of the people.

ANPEQ-1 7y ago
Thank you. There is such thing as legitimate secrets. The threat of jail for wholesale and thoughtless release of top secret information... is a good threat. Professional journalists know this and shouldn't jump on the Assange bandwagon; they understand that their power comes a duty of care.
- rplst8 7y ago
  Secrets are just that, secrets. Not some legally protected object. If you don't want your secrets getting out, then don't tell people them, or better yet - don't do bad things. Making secrets legally protected for those that have not signed an NDA and do not participate in government inner-workings or aren't even citizens of that country is a dangerous precedent that erodes the first amendment. What would stop a government from making something "classified" ex post facto just to silence and/or jail nay-sayers, political opponents, or oppressed peoples? The answer is nothing, and this is exactly why this cannot stand.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - jmpman 7y ago
    So, a journalist could publish the design documents for the F-35? The newest hydrogen bomb? Information on how we are spying on the North Koreans? Proof that military intelligence isn’t always 100% correct and has bombed groups incorrectly? Proof that we are spying on suspected terrorists who have recently been granted US citizenship? I believe there is a line somewhere in the above scenarios, and journalists are responsible for determining where that line exists. Assange appears to have a different interpretation of where that line is from the US government officials.

spsrich2 7y ago

Amazing the guardian are complaining. Their editorial line usually comes from MI6

mc32 7y ago

I wish people would just focus on the part that regards journalism, free press, free speech, sources and releasing leaked information. All the rest will fall along political lines. Liked or disliked for the effects on political allies and foes. It’s obvious if you have followed this case. Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved him. The state apparatus however still see this as an adversarial act. So, instead let’s discuss the implications of censorship (state and self-imposed) and journalism this case has.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
I disagree; much of the right still seems to be calling for him to be locked away for a long time despite his role in getting Trump elected. Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped.
- deleted 7y ago
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- rplst8 7y ago
  The OP's point is that many people have flipped their positions on this topic - particularly when it suits them politically.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  > Much of the left (including the Guardian in this article) is calling for charges to be dropped. I really don't think this is true. The Guardian is more acutely aware of the threat this poses to general protections afforded journalists (even outside the U.S.) Assange's reputation is putting an unfortunate taint to the story; if we separate the man from what's actually being done in the criminal charges, it's probably a lot clearer to people from both sides of the aisle that this is a threat to the fourth estate.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  True, many leftist news organizations have been consistently defending him and calling this out as an attack on free speech. For example, the Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, etc.

dharma1 7y ago

The extradition request was just signed by the UK home secretary - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624024 Now the court system will decide over the coming months/years whether or not to hand him over to the US, where he has a good chance of being imprisoned for a very long time.

sschueller 7y ago
I think that just means the request valid (correctly filled out form). If it is legal gets decided in the courts.
- makomk 7y ago
  It means that the current government has decided they want to support his extradition on these grounds. That's why the Home Secretary has to approve the request - there's a political aspect to extradition.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

Better late than never. The appropriate time for an article like this and coming to his defense would have been last month when Assange moved from the Ecuadorian embassy to a UK prison. Especially considering that they benefited from collaborating with Assange and wikileaks for the very same things he's currently being held prison (and lets not get started on the BS. charges from Sweden). The Guardian would do well to call on the UK government to release this man immediately.

cyphar 7y ago
Really, the right time was 7 years ago. Last month was the last time it would've been possible to do anything about it at all. Now it is beyond too late -- it's a travesty of justice. Once he's shipped to the US there is effectively nothing we can do (other than hope a future president commutes his sentence before they torture him to death or insanity). IIRC the District Court of Virginia has never ruled in favour of the defendant in cases involving the Espionage Act -- which is why they prosecute all whistleblowers there. The idea he is going to have a fair trial is laughable.
lordlimecat 7y ago
Assange isn't in a UK prison because of leaking documents, but because he jumped bail.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Pretending this has nothing to do with Wikileaks is very disingenuous/naive. The Swedes would likely have quickly dropped the case if they hadn't been pressured by the US to not do so. The amount of press this case got in Sweden almost from day 1 was very unusual. The Swedes normally don't commit character murder like this without a trial. Yet, Assange was named and shamed in public, lots of details were leaked, and when the prosecutor dropped the case, she was overruled. It's not normal for high level politicians to get involved with cases like this in Sweden. From what I understand, it was never actually a really strong case. Yet, the Swedes went all out on this. Likewise, the UK would never have put as much effort in pursuing such a minor matter had it not been for the Wikileaks thing. Nor would the Ecuadorians have considered hosting him for seven years. Both the US and UK have repeatedly pressured Sweden to not drop their extradition request and arrest warrant. The fact that he's now being extradited to the US rather than Sweden only confirms that Wikileaks is the only reason all this stuff happened to Assange. Otherwise he'd be on his way to Sweden now. This was about the Swedish extradition request right until he walked out of the embassy.

magwa101 7y ago

Title response, no it's not.

Youcandothis 7y ago
If journalists are imprisoned, then it is.
nkozyra 7y ago
This is reductive and not particularly useful. If the dissemination of information in this way is itself criminalized it puts shackles on the media's abilities to provide insight into the inner workings of the government.

levelist_com 7y ago

Except that Assange isn't a fucking journalist, so... He is, however, a Russian asset/tool/stooge that used stolen information to help Donald Trump get elected.

mr_overalls 7y ago
Exactly. He willingly participated in a Russian cyber/disinformation attack on the US electoral system. Whatever journalistic bona fides he once possessed are long gone.
- sigzero 7y ago
  I don't think he ever had any "journalistic bona fides" to begin with.
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  Where's the proof of this?
  - mr_overalls 7y ago
    https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-russias-useful-idiot-its-agent-influence/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18...
    - whamlastxmas 7y ago
      >The precise nature of WikiLeaks’ relationship to Moscow is not publicly known. A PolitiFact analysis found a documented pattern in which both parties’ interests appeared to align. Elements of the relationship might be clarified in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, though a full accounting of their possible coordination may never be known. In other words: this is all speculation, there's no evidence of coordination other than it looking like it for people who are already wanting that as their narrative. We don't know Wikileak's source. Assange has said it wasn't a state actor or Russia and he has a flawless track record for the information he provides. There's not even a real level of reliability in knowing who hacked the DNC or Hillary servers. The servers were never given to law enforcement to look at, and there are details in the story that don't add up to it being an external party that took the data.

cyphar 7y ago

I find it incredible that it took the Guardian 7 years to decide to write this article. EDIT: In fact, it's not even by the Guardian -- it's an opinion piece by an ex-Guardian editor who was (at least implicitly) part of the smear campaign against Julian Assange "back in the day". Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What kind of a message does that send? They also didn't tell anyone involved in the Snowden revelations when GCHQ forced them to destroy their copies. They also (through their tehnical incompetence) leaked documents that WikiLeaks had not published, then blamed WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for the disclosure. Not to mention the ludicrously false and harmful articles they published about him meeting Manafort and co-ordinating disclosures with the Trump campaign alongside many other government puff pieces disguised as "journalism". Now, all of a sudden, they feel it's a good idea to try to help him. It's too late for that. The right time to try to help him was 7 years ago. Doing it now is for the birds, it's pure political theater so they can pretend (in 15 years) that they were "on the right side of history". Absolute bullshit. Then again, saying something is better than nothing. Here in Australia there is no public discussion about Julian Assange (an Australian citizen and journalist being tried under US terrorism laws). Even more ironic is that we recently had a bit of a "freedom of the press" scuffle because the ABC was raided by the Australian Federal Police because of some coverage from 2017 over Australian Army war crimes. I find it incredible that nobody mentioned Julian. At all. What an absolute disgrace today's press is. [1]: https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255 https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=5255

creaghpatr 7y ago
And in fact, the Guardian published a blatently false story about Manafort holding "secret talks" with Assange, which they incredibly have still not retracted, despite literally zero evidence to back up this extraordinary claim. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...
- spikels 7y ago
  That story was clearly fake. The Guardian reporter and his source have both proven to be unreliable in the past, no other newspaper could confirm the claims and the Special Council looked into it and found nothing. And the Guardian has now “re-establish[ed] links” with British military/intelligence after their breakup post-Snowden: https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304640 https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304... Much of our media now coordinates and sources stories from national intelligence services. This has been true with some of the biggest stories of the past few years - many of which failed to pan out. So in some important cases our “news” has been literally government propaganda.

duxup 7y ago

I don't really buy it. The crime he was accused of by the US is helping someone try to break into a laptop. That's beyond most journalistic standards for conduct and a criminal act. We'll see what can be proved in court from here.

Miner49er 7y ago
You're behind. That was one charge. That charge doesn't really matter anymore. It wasn't really the attack on freedom of the press that the new charges are. He's now being charged under the Espionage act for asking for classified info and publishing it. The new charges are what matter and what everyone is talking about.
cyphar 7y ago
He is also being accused of 17 counts of breaching the Espionage Act with a maximum sentence of several lifetimes in prison. The conspiracy to break the CFAA charge was just the taster -- and I would argue that it was done tactically so that the discussion of Julian would be "he's a hacker not a journalist". If I was working for the DoJ that's without question what I would've done -- whether the accusations were true or not. We live in a society based on the presumption of innocence. Just because the US government says something (which happens to be incredibly helpful for their narrative) does not make it true. Also, he wasn't accused of trying to break into a laptop. He was accused of allegedly offering to help Chelsea Manning crack a password hash (which he never did). Aside from the fact that johntheripper is free software and is so trivial to use that teenagers know about it (making the entire story seem suspect on its face) it completely ignores that this is ridiculously minor compared to the Espionage Act indictments.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Which should be legal since the US does breach privacy around the world (with the help of his awfully quite home country). So I don't see the justification to prosecute him. Of course governmental data of the US isn't protected from non-citizen access. Why should it, these are the rules they themselves set. It is naive to think that governmental actors have an advantage at espionage. On the contrary. The most advantages has anyone without critical secrets.

leftyted 7y ago

It remains to be seen whether the charges under the Espionage Act stick. They may not and I don't think they should. But it seems a bit breathless to declare these charges a "threat to journalism". Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing. There's a sharp divide in how people view Assange. Some buy into his hipster-tech-Jesus persona. These people think the rape (read: surreptitious condom removal) allegations were materialized by the US government, somehow overlooking the fact that nearly everyone who has interacted with Assange has a negative opinion of him personally (see - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting). I see Assange as a tragic figure. Publishing the "Collateral Murder" video was good. But Assange's worldview is basically incoherent. "All information should be open" is a naive position and there's a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia. When you publish everything, you're obviously putting yourself in a position in which you can be used. Further, states are allowed to have secrets for the same reason people are allowed to have secrets. It isn't possible for governments to conduct foreign policy with everything in the open. Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame. I'd contrast Assange with Daniel Ellsberg rather than comparing them as this article does. That said, I think the US government would have been better off not pursuing him at all. Now that they have him, I hope he just gets a slap on the wrist.

cyphar 7y ago
> Assange participated in the leaking of classified documents, which is different than simply publishing. This is an accusation made by the US government, it's not a fact. WikiLeaks accepted leaked documents and published them after verifying they were true. This is basically what journalists do (though they usually write articles that summarise the leaks). Also, WikiLeaks did redact documents on many ocassions (in some cases even asking the US State Department what information should not be published). Everyone remembers the mostly-unredacted leaks of the war logs, but most people haven't followed up and seen that they did start redacting more things after the backlash. Though they never redacted sources or methods because those things have proven to help people in the past.
- 7y ago

jtr_47 7y ago

What I don't understand is the the following. 1. Julian is not a United States of America Citizen. So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind 2. Julian is a citizen of another country. How do the laws of USA all of a sudden encompass people outside of the USA? Yes, wikileaks did receive "secret" stuff, but the exposure of these events is for the greater good and exposes how the USA is corrupt and "evil." The USA needs to be held accountable for their actions. The USA has no business in other countries, killing, maiming, destroying their homes and lives. Regardless of what happened on 9/11, which I was present on NYC when it happened. Yes, it was horrible, but our own government and their meddling in the affairs of other nations is to blame Is there some kind of unknown laws of the USA that apply to people and countries not part of the USA (non-citizens and other countries)? Peace

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
roywiggins 7y ago
The US doesn't care much where you physically are when you commit a crime against the US. For instance, if you conspire to traffic drugs into the US, the US can come after you. It doesn't matter if you're physically in the US or not when you do it. If an estranged noncitizen parent living abroad conspires to kidnap his children from their custodial parent inside the US, he can be tried for kidnapping by the US. Even if his part of the conspiracy never takes place inside the US. The alternative- just letting him off, due to where he happened to physically be at the time- would be fairly absurd. The jurisdiction he's physically in probably doesn't care, and even if they do, most of the witnesses and all of the victims are physically in the US. The US can't kidnap him but asking the jurisdiction he is in to extradite him is totally normal. This is what extradition agreements are for, in part.
bbatha 7y ago
Personally I believe the charges levied by the US have been trumped up, and even if they were true the offense were minor and this amounts to overzealous prosecution. So putting aside for a second whether the charges against Assange are valid or not. This is the line of reasoning being used: 1) Assange allegedly assisted in hacking US Defense Department computers. The means that he allegedly broke US laws on virtual US soil. They are also alleging that he was a conspirator that directed crimes on US soil via his agent, Manning. If he say hacked a Russian computer and the US was prosecuting him it would be a different story. 2) The US and UK have very strong extradition treaties and will generally extradite with very few questions asked. In most cases the legal systems of the US and UK are trustworthy and compatible enough for this to be a fairly reasonable thing. Again ignoring the specifics of this case, these general principles of law are generally good. The US, and international community have a strong interest in protecting their assets. If you want to virtually strike at a country in a targeted attack you should be prepared to face the consequences -- sitting in another country while you perform it is not a valid excuse. Imagine a more clear cut case, some Russian hacker group hacks a US bank and steals millions of dollars, that seems reasonable to prosecute right?

bufferoverflow 7y ago

Ironically, TheGuardian is smearing Jordan Peterson's new free speech platform before it even launched. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-peterson-launches-anti-censorship-site-thinkspot https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-pe...