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Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

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Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#271

Post by roguecoder »

jonfw wrote: post #253
kbenson wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be some truth to that for some people, but let's not discount the amount of people (I think a majority) that distinguish between exposing government actions and meddling with an election and colluding with a foreign power in dosing so. To be clear, whether they are guilty of that or not is irrelevant to the point that people beleive they are, and that can explain a lot of the difference in how they are perc…

Election meddling is not inherently bad. If your version of "election meddling" is just by sharing facts about a potential electee, than I would say that you have meddled in a positive manner by making americans more educated. If he was engaged in manipulating vote counts, or if he was spreading false information, I would see the problem. But wikileaks for the most part just shared accurate government secrets. You're…

Well, after all, Watergate was just a voter persuasion project.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#272

Post by jonfw »

kbenson wrote: post #267
jonfw wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that it intends to meddle with the election. Like I said, that isn't inherently a bad thing. I also fully intend on "election meddling" by sharing my opinions on the internet. As should you. It's on you to prove why this is bad for the american people. Here are quotes from the two conspiracy theories you were talking about. Did you even read the articles you linked? he specifically warned in both instances tha…

> So what you're saying is that he hasn't named the real leaker and hasn't made any firm claims on who the real leaker is? I believe the specific portion most people would find troubling in that article is: “We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established,” said Assange. “But if there is any question about a source of WikiLeaks being…

For the sake of anybody else reading this, I edited my previous comment before you responded, but at the time you saw my comment your first quote was accurate. My fault for that disjointed communication, I thought I edited it quickly enough.

In that quote he has specifically said "We're not saying that Seth Rich's death neccessarily is connected to our publications." I see nothing wrong with entertaining a conspiracy theory if you aren't lying about having evidence you may not have.

I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#273

Post by pfisch »

eridius wrote: post #245
jessaustin wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, but some leniency is probably in order. We certainly want to honor Ms. Manning's wishes, but they weren't yet publicly known at that time.

They are known now, and has been known for a very long time.

When you change your gender does it apply retroactively? I assume it doesn't because that is needlessly complicated.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#274

Post by jonfw »

roguecoder wrote: post #271
jonfw wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election meddling is not inherently bad. If your version of "election meddling" is just by sharing facts about a potential electee, than I would say that you have meddled in a positive manner by making americans more educated. If he was engaged in manipulating vote counts, or if he was spreading false information, I would see the problem. But wikileaks for the most part just shared accurate government secrets. You're…

Well, after all, Watergate was just a voter persuasion project.

Running a website that publishes other people's leaks at times convenient for an election is not the same as orchestrating a surveillance program and than a cover-up (as a sitting president!).

This is an extremely dishonest comparison.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#275

Post by dosy »

msiyer wrote: post #252
dosy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha. "war crimes" why would I want to delete my awesome comment? yes, I'm doing more than comparing, they're analogous. spying and publishing, mind. if you're so huffy about war crimes, why do you pay your taxes? because doesn't that make you complicit? oh no but you're morally righteous. let me get you a badge for that. also, language.

>> if you're so huffy about war crimes, why do you pay your taxes? because doesn't that make you complicit? No, because I do not have a choice. If I refuse, the system will use violence against me.

pretending you don't have a choice and you're not responsible for your actions is morally bankrupt and a fake justifier of violence and abuse

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#276

Post by dosy »

msiyer wrote: post #250
dosy wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they can't break there law and get away with it. what gives them the right to decide what's secret or not? the state is not wholly good, nor are people. but that's okay, a lot of good still gets done. attacking such a system is wrong. attacking it under delusion of moral righteousness, then continuing to live in the shadow of the freedom it provides, is morally bankrupt. it's also stupid. I totally have the authorita…

You sound like an agent of the system. The authoritarian mindset is the reason why the whole system is so violent and morally bankrupt.

would you rather be an agent with agency or a subject flopping around helplessly complaining? authority doesn't have to be bad. you're projecting

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#277

Post by bubblethink »

belltaco wrote: post #264
bubblethink wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that analogies from the real world do not extend very well to digital things, and you can end up with some extremely broad laws that are misused. We already have problems like DMCA because of that. Ultimately, it's very difficult to have consistent laws around encryption.

Sure, and that's why intent is important. I fully understand encryption being fully legal, but I don't seen any benefit to legally being able to crack/decrypt other's information without their permission and knowledge, against their will. This has zero implications on crypto-research because it's always legal to try your cracking on your own encrypted data, or on others' data with their permission, like public challe…

> benefit to legally being able to crack/decrypt other's information without their permission and knowledge

>privacy and property rights

This is precisely the issue with DMCA. It is illegal in the US to decrypt a DVD/blu-ray etc (for reference, see why fedora cannot play dvds). So what should have been a reactive law against piracy is now a proactive prohibition codified in law. That's why, laws around encryption should decide on the actions after the fact. You can then use existing law on the actions and encryption is out of the picture. In this case, the actions would be protected by free speech and other protections afforded to journalists.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#278

Post by kbenson »

jonfw wrote: post #272
kbenson wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what you're saying is that he hasn't named the real leaker and hasn't made any firm claims on who the real leaker is? I believe the specific portion most people would find troubling in that article is: “We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established,” said Assange. “But if there is any question about a source of WikiLeaks being…

For the sake of anybody else reading this, I edited my previous comment before you responded, but at the time you saw my comment your first quote was accurate. My fault for that disjointed communication, I thought I edited it quickly enough. In that quote he has specifically said "We're not saying that Seth Rich's death neccessarily is connected to our publications." I see nothing wrong with entertaining a conspiracy…

> I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea.

I'm not sure who "they" are in this question. I assume Assange knows who his sources are, and as someone who claims to be a journalist and run a journalistic enterprise, he would not accuse people of something he had no evidence of.

At this point, there's plenty of investigations as to whether he was a source, many of which are shown on the relevant portion of his Wikipedia page.[1] Either all the evidence so far is incorrect, or Assange knew he wasn't a source, or Assange didn't know whether he was or was not a source, and in either case, anyone that claims to be a journalist or working towards exposing the truth should not be making statements such as he did, or at least that's the opinion of many people.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Debunking

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#279

Post by wybiral »

drewmol wrote: post #269
wybiral wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the sake of not confusing things here, forget about the data they leaked, they already had access to it. They were trying to crack the password of DoD accounts to cover up where they got the data and possibly access more data. But that's not important, from a legal perspective. Cracking those passwords with the intent to use them for unauthorized access seems like conspiracy, and that's what WikiLeaks was offerin…

>And I'm pretty sure the charge of conspiring to hack defense systems is also a crime in the UK so the grounds for extradition aren't so shaky. The jurisdictional overreach of my government (US) in this case concerns me. Some questions we should consider: Is it a crime in the UK for an Australian citizen residing in Sweden to offer help cracking a password over online chat to a US citizen residing in Afghanistan and…

It's really up to the UK whether to extradite, but yeah extradition is a thing that several allied countries do to prevent people from being able to commit crimes in other countries without consequence.

I get the concerns, but the charge is of conspiracy and that's exactly how it works... If you get caught planning to hack the DoD but you don't accomplish it, those plans can be used against you in a conspiracy charge.

> Should we start extraditing Canadians for weed?

That's up to Canada, but on the face of it that's not even a crime (Americans can go to countries with legal marijuana, the crime is possession in the states). Now, if someone in Canada was conspiring to traffic a massive amount of weed into the US that could be different.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#280

Post by Iv »

slg wrote: post #29
apsec112 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, First Amendment protections apply to non-Americans. However, as you say, Assange is being prosecuted for conspiracy to hack computers, not for his speech.

Non-Americans are certainly protected by the Constitution while in the US, but I thought there was still a legal debate about whether the US Constitution fully applies to foreign nationals while outside the US. Hasn't that long been the legal excuse used for things like international mass surveillance and what goes on in Guantanamo Bay?

It would be a pretty fucked up logic if US laws applied outside US but the document that prevents US laws from becoming tyrannical would not.

That would simply be evil.

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