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Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

stundin.is

71–80 of 334 posts

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fair enough, he runs a so called "hostile intel svc"

For what, reporting the truth to the US public? That's called journalism and ought to be praised.

Opinion split, many think he's an arch criminal. Certainly hasn't made US diplomacy any easier.

I'd gander that Assange, Snowden and Trump are the main reasons why our alliances are shaky. (I'm an American but this affects the whole Western alliance)

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#72
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims (Trump colludes with Russians, Russians hack DNC) requires extraordinary evidence. In over 5 years, this has not been presented.

They traced it back to the IRA and named the specific people involved on the Russian side and the method (email phish of Podesta). The Mueller report goes into specific detail or you can listen to the lawfare blog podcast that goes through it. “Collusion” is a poorly defined term, the report found their actions didn’t rise to the level of criminal conspiracy, but there was plenty of evidence that the campaign was int…

> I suspect no evidence will meet your extraordinary standard because you’re only looking for evidence that supports an existing position based primarily

Let's s start with even minimal evidence before we get to worrying about my cognitive biases.

Read #8 in this article: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...

"Shawn Henry of Crowdstrike, testifying in secret to congress, ... saying there was not “concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC,”"

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#73
post #66
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you continue with a flood of poor and circumstantial evidence that's hard to sort through and falsify, the claim that a President colludes with a foreign power is extraordinary.

If that's "a flood," you must live in a very dry place. A. He wasn't president at the time. B. While it's natural to assume that a candidate is aware of, and is ultimately responsible for, everything his campaign does, I've distinguished between his campaign colluding and Trump personally colluding. C. Everything that has already been made public about the campaign makes further claims that are less well documented n…

And there you go with the exact flood I predicted.

Here is my reply. Simple.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#74
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniability and Assange’s personal anti-US politics became a corrupting influence too. There's a passage in Sarah Kendzior's book (Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America) which clicked (to me): ultimately things like wikileaks damage societies and governments that are transparent.…

Lol no. The reason there is not as much damaging information leaked from dictatorships, is because any leakers are guaranteed to be executed. Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning would have been executed after a 30 minute show trial in a dictatorship.

> Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning would have been executed after a 30 minute show trial in a dictatorship.

And Snowden, having escaped overseas but not being particularly hidden, would have had an encounter with some kind of nerve agent delivered by someone totally unconnected to the government he had leaked info from.

None of which endorses the US treatment of any of them.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#75

Important to note that nothing Wikileaks has published has ever had to be retracted. They've told the truth to the public about governments, which is why they're targeted. In fact several Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded thanks to their efforts. They've never been shown to put anyone at risk either, a testament to their careful vetting process, showing that they're responsible too. This is clearly a political attack…

> They've never been shown to put anyone at risk

This is false. They've denied putting people at risk, but there's decent evidence that their leaks have directly shared pii and harmed large numbers of random unimportant people.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#76
post #9

For someone who has not followed Assange news for a long time, what is the general accusation of his crimes? Is it just that he published secret material that he received from other sources?

No, that’s not illegal for somebody without a clearance. The crime he’s charged with is that he was willing to (and I think did?) assist in breaking into a computer system to get the docs. I think under the CFAA. They have communication records of this because the person he was talking to was working for the USG. Had he just been accepting docs as he was initially that would have been fine. It’s hard to know the trut…

His crime was that he ran hashcat https://blog.erratasec.com/2019/04/assange-indicted-for-brea...

> Had he just been accepting docs as he was initially that would have been fine.

They would just invent something else.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The crime he’s charged with is that he was willing to (and I think did?) assist in breaking into a computer system to get the docs. I think under the CFAA. They have communication records of this because the person he was talking to was working for the USG. The US government claims this, but it's not been proven. > At some point Russia was also using Wikileaks as a place to target the USG with some plausible deniabi…

I think you’re overconfident in what you believe to be true based on the evidence that exists. The Russian bit can be politically inconvenient for you and yet also be true.

>The Russian bit can be politically inconvenient for you and yet also be true.

I'm not sure how it's politically inconvenient for me when I'm a registered Pacific Green.

People need to stop "thinking" in false dichotomies like left vs right or liberal vs. conservative. Astrology is six times smarter.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#78
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They traced it back to the IRA and named the specific people involved on the Russian side and the method (email phish of Podesta). The Mueller report goes into specific detail or you can listen to the lawfare blog podcast that goes through it. “Collusion” is a poorly defined term, the report found their actions didn’t rise to the level of criminal conspiracy, but there was plenty of evidence that the campaign was int…

> I suspect no evidence will meet your extraordinary standard because you’re only looking for evidence that supports an existing position based primarily Let's s start with even minimal evidence before we get to worrying about my cognitive biases. Read #8 in this article: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official... "Shawn Henry of Crowdstrike, testifying in secret to congress, ... saying there was…

You've already been provided and discarded more than minimal evidence.

For example, in the muller report, a more extensive investigation, the specific hacking unit is identified. Whether or not crowdstrike knew in 2017 doesn't matter. Today we know APT-28 was responsible, and they're members of the GRU.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what, reporting the truth to the US public? That's called journalism and ought to be praised.

Opinion split, many think he's an arch criminal. Certainly hasn't made US diplomacy any easier. I'd gander that Assange, Snowden and Trump are the main reasons why our alliances are shaky. (I'm an American but this affects the whole Western alliance)

Suck dick, idiot.

Re: Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

#80
post #9

For someone who has not followed Assange news for a long time, what is the general accusation of his crimes? Is it just that he published secret material that he received from other sources?

Pretty much, he's been indicted for 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, which yeah, is just for seeking/leaking confidential info. It's a huge attack on freedom of the press. The press has always been allowed to cover leaked stuff, the Espionage act has only been used against sources in the past, not reporters. He's also facing a very minor charge (max 5 years in prison) for conspiracy to commit computer intrus…

I thought the latter CFFA charge is what helps to enable to former? IANAL though so I could easily be wrong about this.

Basically helping to break into the computer system moves you out of the realm of journalist and into the realm of political enemy which now makes you vulnerable to espionage.

I think there isn’t much case law around this stuff though.

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