I’m not sure I parse things the way you do. Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified material, but actively participated in expropriating it, he’s on the wrong side of the law.
Folks had been willing to overlook that, because they viewed him as sympathetic. But he’s undermined that with his connections to Russia. Moreover, Russian attempts to manipulate the 2016 election showed a lot of people that radical transparency isn’t cost free—hostile governments can use this information to jeopardize American national security, including by manipulating otherwise well meaning leakers.
If you’re neither sympathetic nor on the right side of the law, you’ve got a problem.
> Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems.
1 out of the 18+ charges brought against him are for that. It's also a minor crime that would carry a 5 year penalty, which is hardly worth all this effort. The other 170 years of charges related to violations of the espionage act, and it's not at all clear that they would even apply to Assange who is not a U.S. citizen or military contractor.
> because they viewed him as sympathetic.
I've never viewed him as sympathetic. It takes a completely unrestrained ego to try to be the "public front-man" for Wikileaks. On the other hand, what's happening to him now is a clear abuse of the law and extradition process. Add to that the years of mistreatment he's been through, and I find it very easy to see him in a sympathetic light.
> But he’s undermined that with his connections to Russia.
How so? Did he actively seek out Russian documents so he could release them?
> hostile governments can use this information to jeopardize American national security
This misses the obvious. Hostile foreign governments _already_ had this information. How or why they were using it before is beyond us. Releasing it does serve their interests, but it's no longer possible for them to monopolize it either. The only difference is, after it was released, we all had it.
> If you’re neither sympathetic nor on the right side of the law, you’ve got a problem.
Yes, but that's _precisely_ the reason we invented courts in the first place, to ensure that even in these ambiguous circumstances that justice can be seen to. It's troubling that you see this as the exact reason he won't receive justice at all... and again, it's what makes it so easy for me to view him sympathetically again.
> How so? Did he actively seek out Russian documents so he could release them?
Julian Assange hosted a show on RT, he was literally on the payroll of the Russian government. Also suspicious is that Wikileaks basically has only leaked documents that look bad for western democracy. There’s one leak of critical of Russia, but it has basically nothing of substance in it. When you claim to be for radical transparency and work for the country that regularly has reporters murdered, it strains belief.
>Julian Assange hosted a show on RT, he was literally on the payroll of the Russian governmen
Assange made a show and sold broadcast rights to RT. Small but distinct difference in that he was never under pressure to follow what Russia wanted, they just wanted to broadcast his point of biew.
>There’s one leak of critical of Russia, but it has basically nothing of substance in it.
Why would anyone with information damaging to Russia choose to leak data to a primarily English organization, with no Russian speaking employees, and mainly Western readers?
And it was a pretty good show, too. Seriously, Assange is not a bad interviewer, and he managed to get some pretty difficult-to-book (to put it lightly) people on the show.
I thought the West is open to criticism, but it looks like I'm wrong. The West is open to criticism, if and only if the criticisizer also critisizes the West's enemy. How open minded it is.
The US Department of Justice issued a press release in June that tries to summarize the charges in the superseding indictment.[0] For most of the document it's hard to tell what is part of the idictment and what may be simply a recap of other things the US DOJ believes he may have done.
In regards to Chelsea Manning, that bit is quite short:
"In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. "
Forbes spent some time on this[1] and they believe that this really is the important part, this is the act that elevates Assange's actions to conspiracy. According to Forbes no password was ever derived from the hash and it never led to the collection of any documents.
Assange is alleged to have actively recruited hackers and directed them to find particular information from particular sources. Among other things, agreed to assist Manning in deriving a password from a hash file. (It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not—the crime of conspiracy is complete upon taking the first substantial step toward achieving the goal of the conspiracy, such as passing the hash to someone else for cracking.)
According to the indictment, he was closer to running an operation to expropriate sensitive data from all over the world than being a journalist neutrally publishing documents that people sent him.
Manning is the one who passed the hash, not Assange. If it even is a hash, Manning is unsure. Assange never agreed to crack the password. There is no evidence Assange communicated the alleged hash to anyone else let alone attempted to crack it. A couple of days later Assange asks manning about it again, and there's no response. Assange never inquires about how Manning got this 16 byte value, nor does he offer any instructions on how to extract password hashes.
If this had been a chat log from a legal pentest that was being conducted by Manning then nobody would claim that Assange helped or contributed to it in any way. If there was an actual conspiracy going on here the logs would look much different.
The rest of the allegations basically claim that putting out a general call for people in possession of state secrets leak them is conspiracy ipso facto, as is taking any step to follow up with anyone who is interested in leaking, or taking any step to prevent a source from getting caught. It's ridiculous.
Is there some additional evidence in support of the allegation that Assange conspired to crack a password that I've missed?
It's there on page 6: something they thought might be a hash was handed over. Assange represented they had resources to throw at it, and did so. It doesn't need to actually have been a hash, Assange doesn't need to actually have succeeded. He provided assistance, however ineffective, to help break into and exfiltrate classified systems and data. At that point he stopped being a passive recipient of leaked data and stepped over into helping steal it.
> something they thought might be a hash was handed over.
What? Was handed over by who? Manning gave it to Assange, we have no evidence to suggest Assange did anything with it. By this logic you might as well argue that Assange was actively conspiring because he provided an SFTP server for Manning to upload stuff to.
Think of it this way: You're sitting at a bar and I'm selling you drinks. You're drinking and talking about how you want to steal some cars. You ask me, "Do you know much about defeating car locks?"
I say, truthfully, "Sure, I have a huge collection of dealer keys"
Then you pull out a picture of a Telsa, show me, and say "I want to steal one of these!"
And so I say, "Right, well I'll ask a friend about that. How about another drink?"
Then a couple of days later you come to the bar and I ask you, "Have you stolen a Tesla yet? No luck with my friend". You don't reply and we never speak of it again.
Did I actually help you try to steal the Tesla? Did I conspire with you to do it? Did I take any active steps to help you? I don't think so. If you disagree I'm curious why you think I'm wrong, either in this analogy or in what the chat logs actually say.
We do have evidence Assange did something with it. Again, right there on page 6, he "passed it on to our lm guy".
I guess theoretically he might have been blowing smoke, but that doesn't matter: he said that he had done something with it. If he was lying, it's very unfortunate, because the lie claimed he committed a crime.
A server to send data to doesn't help Manning steal the data. She had to steal the data before she could leak it.
Don't go reading into what you think my logic is in the broader issue. I'm talking about the very narrow question of whether Assange crossed over from receiving data into trying to provide the ability to steal more of it. My opinion on this case as a whole is not at all reflected by analyzing my stance on that one specific legal question.
It's a lot more than theoretical that he was blowing smoke. It's almost certain that he was. Assange is personally aware of how to crack NTLM hashes. If there was any actual intent to crack that hash I'd expect to see a lot more follow up in the conversation... like "ok I'm running john/hashcat with the common word list... how about you upload the SAM/try mimikatz? What do you know about the local password complexity policy?", and stuff like that.. but there's none of it.
If "I'll ask a guy" is all that's required to make something into a conspiracy that is incredibly, mindblowingly flimsy.
I suppose as a starter, can we redefine journalist to be more of that? Wikileaks is a rare source of information that is both international and relevant to me; more news like that would be very welcome.
Secondly
> It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not...
I mean, that is sort of the complaint. He annoyed powerful people doing something that isn't a crime (the leaking) and then they're combing through hitting him with random charges that nobody cares about. We haven't been watching an 8 year circus because of a failed password crack. None of the response is proportionate to that bullshit crime. They've made everything around leaking illegal so they have fig-leaf excuses to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists.
Furthermore, the security apparatus could probably just make something up if there were no crimes. They've lied to everyone else, why not the UK justice system?
This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
In this case we're not talking about documentation of wrong-doing on the part of the US government. In this narrow instance, we're talking about a government employee providing the hash of a password to a journalist who will then try to find another person capable of "decoding" that hash to yield the clear-text password.
To me, that seems very different then what I normally think of as investigative journalism.
In my opinion I'm not sure how much or how heavy a book should be thrown at someone trying to decode a hashed password, but that's not really what is at issue. Perhaps the issue is, "is this a crime in the UK".
Journalists will themselves sneak into physical venues if they can. The example I can recall is of a reporter crashing a meeting/party of a financial fraternity in NYC.
What you describe isn't necessarily a crime. But if the physical venue happened to be a secured area on a military base or intelligence installation, there's a good chance they'd go to jail. And even if the didn't, it would still be a crime.
Convincing people to leak stolen information to you is one thing. (And legal). Attempting to use your own tools to help that person steal more stuff is another thing entirely. (And illegal)
It's self-evident bullcrap. The Adrian Lamo logs (published by Wired and available online) show very clearly that Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak.
I believe that is incorrect. Assange is accused of helping Manning cover her tracks rather than extract the information in the first place. I.e. he was trying to protect his source.
In addition, multiple journalists have spoken out to the effect that encouraging sources to leak is standard journalistic practice.
“Protecting your source” means that you don’t disclose your source. It doesn’t mean you help your source cover up a crime.
This is not a difficult line drawing exercise. Lawyers do it all the time: you’re protected from disclosing client confidences. But it’s highly illegal to actually assist your client in obstructing an investigation!
Journalists have already testified in this case to the contrary of what you said. I.e. They do help sources stay undetected, providing advice and sometimes help where appropriate.
Similarly, military and political practice don't define what is and isn't illegal in connection to launching and justifying wars, frequently and repeatedly killing innocents and journalists, setting up a highly illegal system of secret sites and covert armies explicitly for the purpose of abducting people globally (including random innocent members of the general public) and torturing and killing them, conspiring to lie about it all to the general public, then phoning up your cronies and launching a transparent international extra-legal persecution of someone who has embarrassed you.
But it should. The law should follow morality, ethics, and common practice. If the US law is beyond that, then it is overreaching and tyrannical. But of course, especially with these leaks, we already knew that.
Morality and ethics are not universally shared among people within a country. Consider debates in the US about abortion, same sex marriage, imprisonment of illegal immigrants... The list could go on for a while.
> The law should follow morality, ethics, and common practice
Whose morality, ethics, and common practice? The fact that this leaked and almost nobody cares means that people have made a decision. They want the government to have wide latitude to protect them from terrorism, and they care more about that than prosecuting this purported wrongdoing.
>The fact that this leaked and almost nobody cares means that people have made a decision.
Most people have made the decision that the government is corrupt, Assange is an asshole, and there's nothing they can do about any of it because their elected officials are also corrupt.
That is hardly an endorsement of all the horrible things that the US government has been secretly doing in their name.
Yes, two things can be true at the same time: The US does some bad things, and Assange was trying to break a supposed hash to help Chelsea Manning steal more stuff.
That may not be the case when the first amendment is applied. Consider Heller vs DC, in which the Supreme Court ruled that firearms in common use for lawful purposes couldn't be banned under the second amendment. Standard practice can be a factor when constitutional protections are at issue.
The only crime being committed that matters is what he uncovered. If a Journalist walked on to private property to find an officer peeing on evidence or torturing an innocent person and then took that to the press, you wouldn't charge the journalist for trespassing.
Assange is accused of more than that. Manning gave him something they thought was a hashed password. Assange tried to crack it so that Manning could use it to steal more data.
A journalist can receive information from a thief, but if the journalist starts helping the thief cracks safes to steal more stuff, that is a whole other story.
>Assange tried to crack it so that Manning could use it to steal more data.
*so Manning could steal the same amount of data with a bit more secrecy. The account in question was a generic Windows account that only had access to thing Manning had clearance for.
It doesn't need to have been successful or useful or practical. Assange stepped over the line of receiving leaked data into providing assistance for the person leaking that data break into more things.
Please note that I'm not saying Assange deserves to be prosecuted for any of this by the US government. Saying he stepped over the line (or may have stepped, since he's not proven guilty) is only step 1.
The next step to ask is "is that a crime?" Yes, in the US it is.
But then comes the next question: "Was Assange subject to US law when he did this?" That is much less clear. I don't know where he was physically located when he was involved with this, or international law to know where jurisdictional issues land on this. Personally, I don't think he should be subject to US when he's not a US citizen and wasn't located in the US when he did this. I don't like the idea that countries could prosecute someone for doing something illegal when what they did was legal in their location. To take a simple example, within, within the US that would be like saying that Utah could charge & extradite someone who smoked weed in Colorado, where it's legal, to Utah, where it is not legal.
And more questions after this too, like "Did crossing the line actually provide significant material aid?" In this, I don't think it did.
>Assange stepped over the line of receiving leaked data into providing assistance for the person leaking that data break into more things
I can understand your point, but Assange never provided assistance that allowed Manning to break into more things. The assistance provided, if successful, would only let Manning access the data she already had access to, just not leave a log saying she was the one who accessed it.
To use a physical analogy, Manning already had access to a file cabinet and was committed to leaking every document inside, and Assange gave her a pair of gloves to hide her fingerprints. His actions in no way enabled her act, but was an attempt to prevent retaliation.
This posits that it should be illegal to expose classified war crimes.
Sometimes, the law is wrong, and should be broken. Nonviolent disobedience of the law is a moral obligation in many instances. There is a long and glorious history of this happening throughout modern history.
This is why we have juries: to make that instance not illegal.
No it doesn’t. It posits that the purpose of “exposing classified war crimes” shouldn’t immunize conduct that’s otherwise illegal.
According to the indictment, Assange was running a whole operation where he was recruiting hackers to get sensitive data from protected computer systems. You’re positing that we should basically have vigilante hackers that expropriate and publish confidential data so long as they purport to be acting in the public interest. That’s an intriguing idea. Maybe that should be the law. But that definitely isn’t the law now. (And when it comes to a jury—we are still in the extradition stage, so the jury will come later—I suspect they won’t agree either.)
> According to the indictment, Assange was running a whole operation where he was recruiting hackers to get sensitive data from protected computer systems.
This is an accusation, and is not fact. You'd be wise not to treat it as such until it's proven.
The main issue with the course that you seem to suggest is that by the time he might obtain a jury trial in the US, he will already be subject to US imprisonment, and thus, torture (which is precisely what happened to Manning). Countries that purport to be free (such as the UK) should prevent extradition to countries that torture suspects prior to trial, such as the US.
> You’re positing that we should basically have vigilante hackers that expropriate and publish confidential data so long as they purport to be acting in the public interest.
That's not what they said at all. That's just a straw-man you created. What they said is that Juries are the law, they're part of the English tradition because a Jury is the law.
That's not what the commenter said. They outlined a classic stance on the concept of civil disobedience which is that one way of fighting unjust laws is to refuse to obey them. (the corollary to that is to be ready to face the consequences)
Are we going to ignore the obviously extralegal illegalities required to even put him in the position to be subject to our laws as a foreigner including collaborating with a foreign jurisdiction to bring false rape charges?
If you have war criminal suspects not being prosecuted but only Assange, your 'democracy' has a bigger (fairness) problem.
If your citizens are so easily swayed by Russian manipulation that you have to make it such a big deal, your 'democracy' has a bigger (fragility) problem.
If you are OK with MNCs swaying votes with money but not with nations doing the same, your 'democracy' has double-standards and has a bigger (integrity) problem.
You can 'law' all you want. Laws are written by people, who are sometimes just and sometimes not just. Laws are not all universal; they get changed all the time; different countries have different laws. Some laws are right and some are wrong.
>Moreover, Russian attempts to manipulate the 2016 election
As a non American, I always found this Russian manipulation stuff funny. America has no problem manipulating elections in other countries, overthrowing elected leaders with political coups and even assassinating foreign politicians within the borders of other nations, but Russia posting facebook ads to sway the people dumb enough to be swayed by them is oh so terrible.
Well sure, I just mean, I dunno, I guess what i'm trying to say is, 'he who casts the first stone, 'pots calling the kettle black'...'don't dish it if you can't take it'...etc.
In this case, those in the US most alarmed by Russian interference in the US election are mostly the same people who oppose US interference in foreign elections too. The people who supported the invasion of Iraq, for example, are mostly happy to turn a blind eye to Russian interference now.
Remember in every country which does things you don't like, there are people who feel as you do. In this case those people are getting the shit end of the stick.
> “ Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified material, but actively participated in expropriating it, he’s on the wrong side of the law.”
This is not actually true for whistleblowing. Manning’s conviction was an illegal conviction given that the exfiltrated evidence unequivocally shows criminal murder, among other crimes, on behalf of the United States.
It is not theft or illegal access or possession if it is indeed whistleblowing. You’d have to prove that the criminal murder was not in fact criminal before any action taken to exfiltrate it can be considered a crime.
On top of all this, there is no evidence that Assange illegally exfiltrated it. It is illegal for charges to be brought based on the available evidence.
Of course, the fact the charges are illegal or that the conviction was illegal in Manning’s case unfortunately doesn’t matter in the United States where political actors will go unpunished for perpetrating such crimes.
Folks had been willing to overlook that, because they viewed him as sympathetic. But he’s undermined that with his connections to Russia. Moreover, Russian attempts to manipulate the 2016 election showed a lot of people that radical transparency isn’t cost free—hostile governments can use this information to jeopardize American national security, including by manipulating otherwise well meaning leakers.
If you’re neither sympathetic nor on the right side of the law, you’ve got a problem.