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Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

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Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#301

Post by Meph504 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #296
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. Shouldn't it if that access revealed information about war crimes? Or an artificial conflict that cost about 500.000 lives? That should remain undisclosed because computer sabotage is bad? This is missing perspective left and right.

If we start with the premises that if people think that something is a crime, they can commit a crime to try and prove it, our legal system will quickly crumble.

Would it still be journalism, if they hacked the database and didn't find evidence.

Should the fact that the information released, put many lives in danger when it compromised many people aiding our government?

Morally his actions can be debated, but not from a legal one, so he should be arrested and it should be up to a jury to determine if is moral reasoning and actions out way his crimes.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#302

Post by dosy »

msiyer wrote: post #283
dosy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You make me laugh. You are either naive or a troll.

admirable trait to laugh when your idiocy is pointed out: "I had no choice but to support the war crimes I hate, because there was no way I could leave that country."

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#303

Post by burfog »

kbenson wrote: post #278
jonfw wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Wikipedia is particularly untrustworthy for political topics. Political parties and even nations are employing teams of people to work their way up the Wikipedia ranks in a fight for control.

Assange would know the source. Assange also made a promise to not reveal sources, making no exception for death. Giving suggestive hints would be one reasonable way to deal with the awkwardness of the situation.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#304

Post by drewmol »

wybiral wrote: post #294
drewmol wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit that last question was poorly related to this situation. The idea that the US claims jurisdiction to enforce laws against vaugly defined actions like this conspiracy law on an Australian citizen for a violation that took place in Sweden with very little evidence by extraditing from the UK seems to indicate all citizens of any nation can be governed by US laws and will be labeled as conspirators if the US g…

Well, think of it this way: imagine that you were trying to help someone else hack the Australian Department of Defense. Should you face an investigation and trial for it or are you immune because you're not Australian? The US might extradite you if Australia could make that case. Especially if it could be proven that you would receive a fair trial and no cruel or unusual punishment. That's what's happening here. The…

If what I did is a crime under US law then yes, in the US. If what I did involved accessing servers in Austrailia, from the US, then again, only if what I did is a crime under US law then yes, in the US. If I claimed in an online chat that I attempted to derive a password from a hash and failed, while I was located in Mexico then no.

The idea of a government's authority being derived from a consent to be governed was expressed very early in the US of A's declaration of independence to Britian: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" and I think this is a reasonable stance.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#305

Post by roguecoder »

ng12 wrote: post #179
haberman wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're missing GP's point. Even if we stipulate that leaks are in the public interest (inasmuch as they expose corruption), selective leaks give an undue amount of power to the person deciding what to leak. If we were getting a similar number of leaks from the DNC, RNC, USA, non-USA, etc. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it. When the leaks are all focused in one direction though, it looks less like…

You're not wrong but there's nothing to be done about it. You either have freedom of speech/press or you don't, you can't have "freedom of speech as long as you're fair".

One approach that might work is an force that only participated in defense/retaliation, similar to the Mohist siege engineers.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#306

Post by briandear »

raxxorrax wrote: post #296
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. Shouldn't it if that access revealed information about war crimes? Or an artificial conflict that cost about 500.000 lives? That should remain undisclosed because computer sabotage is bad? This is missing perspective left and right.

Using that logic, we could argue that defective search warrants should be ignored if they uncover a horrible crime. This idea that breaking laws in the pursuit of a supposed greater good could lead to some dangerous places. This kind of thinking leads to things like torturing people to uncover a terrorist plot: the law against torture is broken using the rationale of uncovering a potentially greater crime. As soon we go down the road of moral relativism, suddenly we have anarchy: any law become optional if the ends are justified to the person making the decision to break the law in question. What if hacking a computer yields nothing? Does that crime get excused because it might have uncovered something? Who decides when a law can be broken?

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#307

Post by belltaco »

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…

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

There's a full video somewhere of this.

https://i.redd.it/sbzfk3uw2or21.gif

Edit: The video, I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7FkLBRpKg

He also announced a 20 or 25K dollar reward for information leading to Seth Rich's murder being solved, in order to further imply he was the leaker.

>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.

The DNC and Podesta email leaks were probably worth a billion or so dollars in campaign money influence. That's not even counting the IRA trolls. You and me and probably all of HN readers combined couldn't come up to such a level of influence.

I believe it was done in bad faith by Russia and Assange in order to divide and destabilize the US, regardless of the outcome of the elections. The IRA tried to amplify both the extremes, and heavily pushed actual fake news including Pizzagate.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#308

Post by briandear »

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…

Canadians smoking weed isn’t a crime against the United States.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#309

Post by burfog »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #193
rayiner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urqui... > The Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply where United States agents searched and seized property located in a foreign country owned by a nonresident alien in the United States. Chief J…

American law can not apply to non-Americans abroad.

This should obviously be the case, with both pros and cons. The non-Americans like Assange might not need to follow American law, but they are also unprotected by it. If the CIA wants to take care of a matter overseas, they just do that.

Re: Julian Assange Deserves First Amendment Protection

#310

Post by wybiral »

drewmol wrote: post #304
wybiral wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, think of it this way: imagine that you were trying to help someone else hack the Australian Department of Defense. Should you face an investigation and trial for it or are you immune because you're not Australian? The US might extradite you if Australia could make that case. Especially if it could be proven that you would receive a fair trial and no cruel or unusual punishment. That's what's happening here. The…

If what I did is a crime under US law then yes, in the US. If what I did involved accessing servers in Austrailia, from the US, then again, only if what I did is a crime under US law then yes, in the US. If I claimed in an online chat that I attempted to derive a password from a hash and failed, while I was located in Mexico then no. The idea of a government's authority being derived from a consent to be governed was…

It sounds like you don't believe in extradition at all, but there is precedence for this and most western countries are on board. It's not just the US, UK, and Australia.

And the conspiracy wasn't just cracking the password, it was explicit intent to crack it for unauthorized access to classified military intelligence.

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