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Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

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Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#261

Post by alexeldeib »

jancsika wrote: post #244
wybiral wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the cries about 1st Amendment ignore the fact that the grand jury proceeded with the indictment because they have Jabber records of WikiLeaks discussing cracking the password of a Department of Defense database. The next time I get caught trying to hack the government I'm going to try the "but it was for journalism" defense. In fact, why can't I hack companies and claim I was just trying to get information to…

> The next time I get caught trying to hack the government I'm going to try the "but it was for journalism" defense. Please define "hack the government" in a way compatible with what the indictment describes Assange having done.

The first line of parent's comment is accurate in terms of of the indictment, if that's what you're getting at?

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/11/assange_indictment_...

> 7. On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#262

Post by kbenson »

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…

> Election meddling is not inherently bad.

Meddling has a negative connotation, so it's probably not useful to continue using that term if trying to discuss this particular issue as something that may not be negative. Tampering has worse connotations, but if you're "meddling" in something, it's implied you're getting involved where you don't belong.

That said, as I noted many people believe it was meddling in this case for numerous reasons (the timing, the specifics of the situation, how it could be perceived as supporting a particular side).

I'm not interested in litigating whether it actually was election tampering/meddling, and I worded my comment specifically to note that. I am interesting in shutting down another line of "Ah, another case of [other group] who are {evil,stupid,hypocrites,wrong} because of [belief] which is wrong because of [contrived example which discounts much of the real reasons people believe that]." It's not constructive to the discussion, does not lead to future useful discussions (and any it does lead to can be reached through far more constructive means), and since the same reasoning can be applied to any response, it's ultimately fruitless. It's pointless and nonconstructive in the same way saying "Trump supporters don't care what he does as long as he sticks it to the Democrats" is.

Edit: Clarified what I meant by my first sentence.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#263

Post by jonfw »

belltaco wrote: post #258
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…

Selective leaking and delaying/timing leaks for maximum impact is election meddling. > if he was spreading false information https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate Leading to https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-pod... Also implying that Seth Rich was the real leaker and that the DNC had him killed for it. http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death...

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 that he did not have damning evidence of either of these things.

> WARNING: This investigation is a Speculative investigation which lacks clear and provable evidence, yet could be interesting should additional evidence be presented.

> We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established

Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#264

Post by belltaco »

bubblethink wrote: post #246
belltaco wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP's point is that cracking passwords is a form of art, so Assange should be able to claim cracking a DoD Administrator password was a performance of art and thus legal. It's not an important point, it's a silly one. >many govts' attempts to ban encryption are stupid because you cannot outlaw math Huh? You can outlaw math. It'd be a stupid idea and quite hard to successfully enforce, but you can outlaw it. >Which is…

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 challenges. What good will it do to extend it to everyone encrypted data?

There are also privacy and property rights issues at hand. Should you be able to crack someone's private key and impersonate them without legal issues?

Reducing something to its basics and then claiming it should be legal by ignoring the real world consequences like the GP was doing is disingenuous.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#265

Post by otterley »

dragonwriter wrote: post #80
syntaxing wrote: post #75

When I took journalism in college, they taught us to things that is not protected by the first amendment. One of them is anything that effects national security which I assume his case falls under. Edit: As I get down voted, I should clarify that I mean for a civilian. I believe my professor was talking about this case since it was relatively new at that time [1]. [1] https://www.rcfp.org/national-security-trumps-fir…

> When I took journalism in college, they taught us to things that is not protected by the first amendment. One of them is anything that effects national security You should get a refund on your tuition; a number of First Amendment protections have been articulated in national security related cases, notably the rule against prior restraint in the Pentagon Papers case which is what allowed their publication.

Attorney here! (Not offering legal advice, though - consult a licensed attorney in your state.)

They key phrase here is "prior restraint." That's not the issue here; the information has been published already. So the holding in the Pentagon Papers case (aka _New York Times_) doesn't apply to this set of circumstances.

Moreover, the Pentagon Papers case made no law. The opinion itself only reversed an appellate court decision and affirmed the judgment of a district court.

Read it yourself: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/713/#tab-opi...

First Amendment law respecting the dissemination of classified information -- by "journalists" (whatever they may be), or otherwise -- is not as settled as people think, and it's my personal view that unless the Supreme Court concludes otherwise, Mr. Assange could find himself in very hot water, as Chelsea Manning did.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#267

Post by kbenson »

jonfw wrote: post #263
belltaco wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective leaking and delaying/timing leaks for maximum impact is election meddling. > if he was spreading false information https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate Leading to https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-pod... Also implying that Seth Rich was the real leaker and that the DNC had him killed for it. http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death...

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 threatened, then people can be assured that this organization will go after anyone who may have been involved in some kind of attempt to coerce or possibly, in this kill a potential source.”

> Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information.

Well, that depends. There are definitely ways I could purposefully word information that would give people a strong impression I was trying to communicate something without saying it.

Do I believe Assange made any factual statements here that the staffer was a wikileaks source and he was killed because of the leak? No.

Do I believe he was trying to insinuate himself and Wikileaks into a narrative where he knew they had nothing to do with it, possibly wasting resources that could have gone towards finding the actual killer, and lending credence to a narrative that we now know (to my knowledge) was untrue? Yes.

That's not illegal. It does affect how people perceive him and his endeavors though.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#268

Post by jonfw »

kbenson wrote: post #262
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…

> Election meddling is not inherently bad. Meddling has a negative connotation, so it's probably not useful to continue using that term if trying to discuss this particular issue as something that may not be negative. Tampering has worse connotations, but if you're "meddling" in something, it's implied you're getting involved where you don't belong. That said, as I noted many people believe it was meddling in this ca…

I'm using the term you used. I'm not concerned with the connotation, I'm concerned with making an argument based in fact.

You said that some people make the distinction between "election meddling" and "exposing government actions". What I'm saying is that those two aren't mutually exclusive and you'd be incorrect to make that distinction as a rule.

Anytime you expose government actions on a democratic government you're naturally going to have some amount of influence on the next election, so frankly it seems rather unintelligent to attempt to draw a distinction there. Either unintelligent or dishonest.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#269

Post by drewmol »

wybiral wrote: post #219
alasdair_ wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the database already in their possession, or was it remote? Remote is hacking. If it’s something that was handed to them from a source then that seems like legitimate journalism. Also “wikileaks” and Assange are very distinct entities. Are there jabber records of (provably) Assange stating that he was trying to hack a remote server belonging to the DoD or was it some hanger-on doing the typing?

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 then report that they were unsuccessful? In the US? Should we start extraditing Canadians for weed?

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