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

theguardian.com

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

#131

Post by roywiggins »

jtr_47 wrote: post #126

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 g…

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.

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

#132

Post by duxup »

cyphar wrote: post #125
duxup wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the espionage act topic is worthy of discussion. The question about the laptop is pretty settled to me. It's against the law to help someone try to break into something like that. I think that is a valid law, doing so is step well outside what a journalist should do, and all of that is regardless if you are successful or not. Also we'll see what he says in court about that, I could have sworn he or his lawyer…

> The question about the laptop is pretty settled to me. Why do you keep repeating that he "hacked into laptop"? As I mentioned above, the accusation is related to Chelsea Manning asking him to help them crack a password hash that Manning acquired by dual-booting on a Linux machine and him agreeing to (and Assange never did help Manning crack it). As I said, I seriously question the truth of such a claim because anyo…

>Why do you keep repeating that he "hacked into laptop"?

I think there might be some confusion here. I didn't say that. You misquoted me in the other reply as well.

We'll see in court if he can prove he did or didn't help.

I don't think how well you know the application in question really has anything to do with the viability of the claim.

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

#133

Post by cyphar »

foldr wrote: post #130
cyphar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wonde…

> 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 think endangering the lives of multiple people ought to merit some kind of punishment, yes. > That they don't publish anything? That they make a serious attempt to redact sensitive info that it's not in the public interest to reveal. Their official reason for not doing so with the Afghan cables was, essentia…

> I think endangering the lives of multiple people ought to merit some kind of punishment, yes.

That is definitely a valid point-of-view (and it's not one that I necessarily disagree with), but that's simply not what he is being charged with.

> Assange plainly and openly didn't give a crap if anyone was hurt as a result.

If you're referring to the claim that he said "informants deserve what they get", this quote could not be corroborated with anyone else who was involved in the conversation where he apparently said that. Given what lies David Leigh went on to say about Julian Assange afterwards it seems likely this claim was also a lie.

> Come on, you don't need cooperation from the US authorities to blank out the name of someone who's mentioned as being, say, a CIA informant.

One of the main concerns was that due to the technical manner in which diplomatic cables are written, you actually do need to have an expert figure out whether there is any implied references to a particular informant that doesn't mention their name. The Guardian and other newspapers did spend lots of time doing this for a very small number of documents.

But again, that doesn't change that they should've done more to redact them. And in future leaks, they did.

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

#134

Post by cyphar »

duxup wrote: post #132
cyphar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question about the laptop is pretty settled to me. Why do you keep repeating that he "hacked into laptop"? As I mentioned above, the accusation is related to Chelsea Manning asking him to help them crack a password hash that Manning acquired by dual-booting on a Linux machine and him agreeing to (and Assange never did help Manning crack it). As I said, I seriously question the truth of such a claim because anyo…

>Why do you keep repeating that he "hacked into laptop"? I think there might be some confusion here. I didn't say that. You misquoted me in the other reply as well. We'll see in court if he can prove he did or didn't help. I don't think how well you know the application in question really has anything to do with the viability of the claim.

> I don't think how well you know the application in question really has anything to do with the viability of the claim.

My point is that Assange knows what johntheripper is. Any 15-year-old that has downloaded Kali Linux knows what it is. So it seems incredibly strange to act as though breaking a hash is any more complicated than just running johntheripper (or hashcat, or any other brute-force tool) on it.

Assuming their claim is true (that he did actually offer to do it), I would think it most likely he was lying to Manning in order to get them to leak more things. According to most accounts he isn't a particularly nice person, so that seems far more in-character to me.

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

#135

Post by bbatha »

jtr_47 wrote: post #126

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 g…

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?

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

#136

Post by darkpuma »

levelist_com wrote: post #116
crdoconnor wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Further, youre alright with Americans being exposed and/or killed b/c of it? There's no evidence of this. Since the leaks were about embarrassing unprosecuted US military murders of civilians arguably it saved lives by driving them to be more careful.

There is no evidence of this that you are aware of. >There's no evidence of this. Since the leaks were about embarrassing unprosecuted US military murders of civilians arguably it saved lives by driving them to be more careful. this is absolute nonsense

Is there evidence that you are aware of?

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

#137

Post by umeshunni »

cyphar wrote: post #59
chrisseaton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a basket with soap and socks Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind? The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment. I don't get it?

If you have a friend who broke their ankle and is in hospital overnight, you send a basket with soap and socks (or more likely, flowers). If you are the head of a news organisation and have a fellow journalist (who you've worked with in the past and gave you "the biggest scoop in 30 years") and is currently facing political persecution by the most powerful government on earth, you send lawyers to help him get out of…

It's funny you mention Appelbaum - he is another person who upset some powerful entities and had a smear campaign against him.

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

#138

Post by sbov »

jtr_47 wrote: post #126

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 g…

> So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind

Physical presence is an odd requirement. So if I pay people to deliver bombs to people in the USA, but I'm not in the USA, I haven't committed a crime?

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

#139

Post by threatofrain »

cyphar wrote: post #35

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…

Instead of blaming the press like they failed you as your life mentor, I’d also argue the actions of the media imply the disinterest of the people. The press is largely a mirror, just like marketing — it’s all based on what people think will sell to you. More articles on math? That doesn’t sell.

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

#140

Post by mr_overalls »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #110
mr_overalls wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where's the proof of this?

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18...
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