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The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

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Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#521

Post by cwkoss »

reversionary wrote: post #423
kristjansson wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether WL has passively (or worse, actively) allowed its position as a conduit of information to be leveraged by malevolent actors to shape (or distort) the truth? Obviously leaks that reveal actual wrongdoing are an unalloyed good. When the leaks that merely provide voyeuristic windows into the routine business of institutions (e.g. the diplomatic cables), the social value of the visibility becomes…

If by American and Western interests, you mean the values western society is built on, the answer should be pretty simple: national security is no excuse for secret courts, secret prosecutions and secret rulings. It's also to be expected that this society is going to provide more opportunities for leaks in the first place, as opposed to more totalitarian societies. Not that there isn't sufficient grounds for arguing…

Wikileaks is the most effective journalistic organization on the planet and the political entertainment 'news' shows hate them for being so much smaller yet so much more effective.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#522

Post by cwkoss »

bestnameever wrote: post #431
resters wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. As I put it in another comment, if someone leaked information that led to Jerry Sandusky being stopped several years sooner, would it matter if the leaker was affiliated with a rival football program? Because of how WL releases full, minimally redacted documents, there is really no reason to worry about the details. Failures of journalistic integrity happen because of strategic omissions or intentional misdi…

> WL essentially can't do that because it releases the source material in essentially raw form. But they can decline to release certain groups of documents that go contrary to whichever narrative they are trying to build.

Thats why we need dozens of Wikileaks 'competitors'

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#523

Post by cwkoss »

stef25 wrote: post #433
cwkoss wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia airing the dirty laundry through a side channel is MUCH more benevolent than the other things (like blackmailing our world leaders) they could do with this. I don't think all of Wikileaks' revelations are from Russia, but even if they all are - and Russia had selfish motivations - it was a benevolent act toward the world. Truth is power, and revealing the truth to the powerless is never an evil act.

So you'd have no problem with your neighbor hacking and dumping your entire inbox online for the whole world to see?

I'd have a problem with my neighbor hacking me.

If they found that I was involved in a scandal, and gave that information to the New York Times, and they fact checked and published it, would be ridiculous for me to try go after NYT.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#524

Post by cwkoss »

plandis wrote: post #302
cwkoss wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia airing the dirty laundry through a side channel is MUCH more benevolent than the other things (like blackmailing our world leaders) they could do with this. I don't think all of Wikileaks' revelations are from Russia, but even if they all are - and Russia had selfish motivations - it was a benevolent act toward the world. Truth is power, and revealing the truth to the powerless is never an evil act.

I fully expect you to publically release all your emails. Even if you don’t do anything illegally. Truth is power, after all even if nothing illegal was done.

If I ever am employed in a position where my salary is funded by taxpayer money, I will do whatever I can to make all of my correspondence and documents public ASAP.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#525

Post by codedokode »

guitarbill wrote: post #489
codedokode wrote: post #420

As I understand, Assange is not an US citizen. How can they prosecute him? Wikipedia page [1] says: > Opinions of Assange at this time [2010] were divided. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described his activities as "illegal," but the police said that he had broken no Australian law. United States Vice President Joe Biden and others called him a "terrorist". Some called for his assassination or execution. Tha…

There are more egregious cases. Kim Dotcom has never been to the US, yet is somehow facing extradition to the US. None of these cases are about justice, it's more like bullying.

Exactly. US uses methods similar to Putin's who sends assassins to kill his enemies.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#526

Post by cwkoss »

azernik wrote: post #341
resters wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this holds up. Who leaks information to a journalist and doesn't have some kind of motive for doing so? Wikileaks actually changes the game on malicious leaks because it won't publish the typical "a high ranking source who wishes not to be named claims that ___" rubbish. Instead, it forces the source to provide the full context of the leak in the form of complete documents. Think about how much mischief…

Leakers always have motivations. That's why reporters need to not take their leaks at face value, and do reporting to expand on the information they receive.

How can presenting a subjective and potentially-biased interpretation of a primary source be better journalism than presenting the primary source itself?

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#527

Post by AnaniasAnanas »

ixtli wrote: post #503
AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are themselves bad actors and should be treated as such How is leaking some provably true secrets about a political party to the public bad in any way in a democracy?

There are responsible and irresponsible ways to dump this kind of info. Both result in the public learning what it is entitled to know. (All such secrets are bad of course and should be brought to light.) For instance, Assange has failed to scrub irrelevant personally identifying information from releases in the past which have resulted in uninvolved non-public civilians getting doxxed. All this does is allow oppress…

> There are responsible and irresponsible ways to dump this kind of info

I personally disagree with this. If a random 3rd party has access to this info then everyone else might as well.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#528

Post by resters »

stef25 wrote: post #491
DoctorOetker wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a good question, see rester's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18466194 DKIM DomainKey Identified Mail, obviously diplomatic communications must prevent spoofing (!), so those mails are signed anyway, ensuring provenance of the emails

Thanks for the link. Aside from provenance, can it be proven that the contents of the leaked emails is valid and untampered with? Like one would use hashes for file verification. I have to admit I have no clue as to what is the format of "leaked emails".

Yes, DKIM/DomainKeys is a hash of the content and some of the message headers of an email, which is added as an additional header.

A public key for the domain name owner is used to verify the hash was generated (and thus the email sent) by the owner of the domain.

Email systems can thus quickly/easily check the validity of the hash when receiving inbound messages and flag or discard messages which lack the header or which fail the test.

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#529

Post by hammock »

FireBeyond wrote: post #401
hammock wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a starting point. https://www.newamerica.org/oti/blog/history-fisa-section-702... Here is another source that says 0.5% https://www.aclu.org/foia-document/semiannual-assessment-com...

So a blog says one number, but an FOI released document shows ten times less? I think I know which to go with.

Which, and why?

Re: The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange

#530

Post by saalweachter »

hnmonkey wrote: post #112
resters wrote: post #64

By doing this the US is coming to the aid of the many dictators and despots whose crimes Assange has helped reveal. Also, by ignoring the crimes revealed by the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the US makes it very clear that war-making cronies rule both parties and would never hold each other accountable for anything. To be clear, the war logs revealed that the US classified information solely because it revealed that…

While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of ot…

My own opinion on this is going to vary a lot depending on what the papers say when unsealed.

If the US is explicitly going after him for his role in disseminating classified information provided to him by whistle-blowers, I'll be disappointed, a little outraged, and unfortunately not completely surprised, since the US has jailed journalists before.

If the US is claiming he is a foreign agent acting against the US, and is willing and able to prove that in a court of law, without any reference to his role as a journalist accepting information from US whistle-blowers, I'll be pleased, a little surprised, and a bit suspicious that it's really about the whistle-blowing.

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