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Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder arrested in London

TheBladeRoden
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b_m_b_m_b_m

b_m_b_m_b_m

Posted
Posted
57 minutes ago, CayceG said:

Also, trying to break into password protected data stores isn't journalism. 

Somehow this reminds me of this 

 

Quote

Revisiting the Cincinnati Enquirer vs. Chiquita
Given the ongoing debate surrounding Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning—and whether or not they committed a crime or acted in the public good—it is fitting to revisit a case which on a much smaller scale. The story of the Cincinnati Enquirer vs. Chiquita Banana showed how the “illegitimate” gathering of evidence was considered a more serious crime than that of engaging in widespread murder, bribery, arms trafficking, and knowingly poisoning the environment of communities throughout Latin America.

 

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Jwheel86

Jwheel86

Posted
Posted

I would only charge him for direct involvement in theft. Anything close to journalism should be off limits, Russian puppets or not. My concern is what if in the middle of an ongoing crisis CNN is leaked something damaging to the investigation, unknowingly putting lives sources and methods at risk, should CNN be charged? 

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johnny

johnny

Posted
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15 hours ago, number305 said:

This guy looks TERRIBLE for 47.  Just to compare Mark Wahlberg, Elon Musk, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Jered Leto are all his same age.

Not saying he looks good but comparing people to the way celebrities look is dumb. Almost all of them look younger than they actually are. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

Posted
Posted

The charges against Assange are ridiculous. I don't like him or his politics but this is about press freedom and he did nothing but use his source (let's not forget Manning here people) to get and then publish information. That's basic investigative journalism. Should Daniel Ellsberg and The New York Times have all been arrested when they published the Pentagon papers? I'm pretty sure they got those without asking as well. 

 

Assange is a lot of things, and his 2016 shenanigans were him saving his own ass, but the charge against him is thin as hell. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Chris- said:

 

It should not be controversial to say that...

 

- Publishing unredacted intelligence that directly puts peoples' safety at risk; and

- Publishing materials stolen by a foreign government

 

...are not matters of journalism and free speech. 

 

18 hours ago, Anathema- said:

 

Agreed; nobody ever said that all classified material is protected and fit to print. It was even an open question whether publishing the Pentagon papers was legal. We didn't jump from "questionable legality" to "unfettered access." Assange shouldn't be prosecuted for things that should be protected for anyone but it's pretty demonstrable that he was a credibility launderer for foreign and international disinformation campaigns and not a journalist.

 

Even if I agreed with these arguments (I don't per se do, but I see the validity to them) what should he be charged with, legally speaking? The charge against him doesn't make sense, given the evidence. 

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mclumber1

mclumber1

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

The charges against Assange are ridiculous. I don't like him or his politics but this is about press freedom and he did nothing but use his source (let's not forget Manning here people) to get and then publish information. That's basic investigative journalism. Should Daniel Ellsberg and The New York Times have all been arrested when they published the Pentagon papers? I'm pretty sure they got those without asking as well. 

 

Assange is a lot of things, and his 2016 shenanigans were him saving his own ass, but the charge against him is thin as hell. 

 

They didn't really charge him with what you are alleging though.  

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Anathema-

Anathema-

Posted
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39 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

 

Even if I agreed with these arguments (I don't per se do, but I see the validity to them) what should he be charged with, legally speaking? The charge against him doesn't make sense, given the evidence. 

 

Sometimes you charge a criminal with only what you can prove. Aiding and abetting the theft of classified data shouldn't be shielded simply because one of the co-conspirators wants to make the information public. Of course it should be legal to make public the information that you have been given or maybe even solicited, even if it's classified, but if you commit crimes to obtain that information then you still committed crimes. By all accounts he's committed a few with likely different levels of provability; printing out a business card that claims he's a journalist doesn't give him special protections, he has to have followed some standards of he practice which he most certainly has not.

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RedSoxFan9

RedSoxFan9

Posted
Posted

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/12/chomsky_arrest_of_assange_is_scandalous

 

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Well, Assange is a similar case: We’ve got to silence this voice. You go back to history. Some of you may recall when Mussolini’s fascist government put Antonio Gramsci in jail. The prosecutor said, “We have to silence this voice for 20 years. Can’t let it speak.” That’s Assange. That’s Lula. There are other cases. That’s one scandal.

 

The other scandal is just the extraterritorial reach of the United States, which is shocking. I mean, why should the United States—why should any—no other state could possibly do it. But why should the United States have the power to control what others are doing elsewhere in the world? I mean, it’s an outlandish situation. It goes on all the time. We never even notice it. At least there’s no comment on it.

 

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SaysWho?

SaysWho?

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

 

It's amazing that the guy who Assange shamelessly helped (after pretending Wikileaks was also trying to get Trump's taxes) has a DOJ that did this, when a Clinton administration may not have went after him.

 

That last part is a guess from me, though; I could be way off.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

They didn't really charge him with what you are alleging though.  

 

The charge as I understand it was: in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to ... a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications.

 

There's no conspiracy here. Assange's attorney is right in this case on the law: While the indictment against Julian Assange disclosed today charges a conspiracy to commit computer crimes, the factual allegations against Mr. Assange boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.

 

3 hours ago, Anathema- said:

 

Sometimes you charge a criminal with only what you can prove. Aiding and abetting the theft of classified data shouldn't be shielded simply because one of the co-conspirators wants to make the information public. Of course it should be legal to make public the information that you have been given or maybe even solicited, even if it's classified, but if you commit crimes to obtain that information then you still committed crimes. By all accounts he's committed a few with likely different levels of provability; printing out a business card that claims he's a journalist doesn't give him special protections, he has to have followed some standards of he practice which he most certainly has not.

 

I'd agree with you but I disagree with your characterization. How is this any different than the Pentagon papers? I assume we're all in agreement that it was a good thing that happened. 

 

As for why Assange sided with Trump, that's because he was deathly afraid/hated Hillary Clinton, that's why. And hey, he has rape allegations as well. Guy is likely a scum bag. But press freedom is super important, more than ever, and I don't want this Overton window shifted. 

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TheGreatGamble

TheGreatGamble

Posted
Posted
21 hours ago, Anathema- said:

 

Russia has him by the balls and also he’s a white supremacist. 

Proof? What makes him a white supremacist?

 

and why should he be charged for anything? He’s not a citizen, nobody can call him a traitor unlike manning. So what’s the deal? It’s ridiculous. He leaked papers someone else stole. That’s journalism.

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SimpleG

SimpleG

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, TheGreatGamble said:

Proof? What makes him a white supremacist?

 

and why should he be charged for anything? He’s not a citizen, nobody can call him a traitor unlike manning. So what’s the deal? It’s ridiculous. He leaked papers someone else stole. That’s journalism.

Per the charges he attempted to help manning "hack" information from the US government and being a citizen has no bearing on anything. 

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TheGreatGamble

TheGreatGamble

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, SimpleG said:

Per the charges he attempted to help manning "hack" information from the US government and being a citizen has no bearing on anything. 

He received the documents, he had nothing to do with getting them. Nothing was hacked, she flat out copied files from secure computers. That was all her, that traitor should be in jail for life. All Assange did is what every journalist does, published information.

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LazyPiranha

LazyPiranha

Posted
Posted
41 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

He received the documents, he had nothing to do with getting them. Nothing was hacked, she flat out copied files from secure computers. That was all her, that traitor should be in jail for life. All Assange did is what every journalist does, published information.

First of all, I'm very impressed with your ability to know all of the evidence before it's even been presented.  Second of all, conspiring to do something illegal is still a crime even if you don't ultimately do it.

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SimpleG

SimpleG

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, TheGreatGamble said:

He received the documents, he had nothing to do with getting them. Nothing was hacked, she flat out copied files from secure computers. That was all her, that traitor should be in jail for life. All Assange did is what every journalist does, published information.

 

 

Charges made public against Assange indicate that federal prosecutors sought to question her over online discussions in which Assange allegedly aided her in attempting to crack a password that would provide access to Defense Department network used to store classified documents and communications. While Manning already had access to the network, known as SIPRNet, the password would have enabled her to download additional material under a username that was not her own.

 

https://gizmodo.com/assange-charges-finally-reveal-why-chelsea-manning-is-s-1833972958

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