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What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? Or is the reasoning that the law should give him spe

What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? Or is the reasoning that the law should give him special treatment and exemptions not given to others? Also, is the 1st amendment protection even applicable to foreigners on foreign soil?

apsec112 8y ago
Yes, First Amendment protections apply to non-Americans. However, as you say, Assange is being prosecuted for conspiracy to hack computers, not for his speech.
- slg 8y ago
  Non-Americans are certainly protected by the Constitution while in the US, but I thought there was still a legal debate about whether the US Constitution fully applies to foreign nationals while outside the US. Hasn't that long been the legal excuse used for things like international mass surveillance and what goes on in Guantanamo Bay?
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. For the US to prosecute Assange, they have to prosecute him in the US, where he does enjoy First Amendment protections, as the First Amendment limits what Congress (and via the Fourteenth, state/local as well) can do.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      It also limits what speech congress can make illegal, effectively controlling what the executive branch can do because of speech.
    - oliveshell 8y ago
      Exactly. If a person is on trial in the U.S. for breaking U.S. law, then U.S. constitutional protections apply— regardless of citizenship or where the alleged crime took place.
    - slg 8y ago
      I think you are misinterpreting the question. The US Constitution obviously has no legal impact on the laws of Saudi Arabia. The question is whether the US government needs to follow the US Constitution when dealing with a non-US citizen on non-US soil. There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. That is why US citizens involved with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or similar hostile organizations will occasionally receive a domestic trial in the criminal justice system while non-citizens generally only face military trials if anything.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        > There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. It's an interesting situation, as there's counter-examples; the Constitution doesn't, for example, appear to permit assassinations (certainly not of citizens without a trial), but they went ahead and droned Anwar al-Awlaki without any apparent legal consequences.
        cbnotfromthere 8y ago
        You seem to willingly confusing "assassinations" with "acts of war". Anwar Al-Awlaki was unquestionably an enemy combatant due to his overt belonging to a non-state actor engaged in military combat with the United States.
    - droithomme 8y ago
      > The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. First Amendment deals with US federal government and states. Neither the federal government nor the states can prosecute you for free speech you engage in as US citizen or resident while in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government might choose to prosecute you, but the first amendment does prohibit the US government from prosecuting you for speech made overseas as well as on US soil. An american journalist is living in Brazil and writes an article critical of the US government. The US government can not prosecute them simply because they wrote the article while out of the country.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    Guantanamo Bay is American soil similar to embassies in foreign cities.
    - belltaco 8y ago
      Embassies aren't "foreign soil". There are restrictions based on international treaties, but they're nothing like foreign soil at all.
    - slg 8y ago
      >Guantanamo Bay is American soil That doesn't seem to be 100% settled law either. The US government has argued both sides in different court cases.
  - Iv 8y ago
    It would be a pretty fucked up logic if US laws applied outside US but the document that prevents US laws from becoming tyrannical would not. That would simply be evil.
- pytester 8y ago
  He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value on behalf of Manning and encouraging him to leak more information (Obama's DOJ refused to make this charge because it's something all journalists do).
  - acqq 8y ago
    > He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value They don't claim Assange extracted a password. They just claim that Assange said in the chat "no luck so far"! That is, that he wrote to Manning that he tried. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... The indictment is "conspiracy" with Manning. So there's certainly something to back up the claim from this title https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11-2019-1.5093429/julian-assange-s-arrest-is-a-vendetta-not-justice-says-friend-vaughan-smith-1.5093432 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11... namely, that "Assange's arrest is 'a vendetta, not justice'" For more context, at the moment this news from ca one month ago have even more sense: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-manning-judge-jails-wikileaks-case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann... "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case"
    - nickysielicki 8y ago
      > Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to Assange. Fun to see them exonerate themselves for using broken security by calling a hash a, "portion of the password".
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    No, he's being prosecuted for allegedly agreeing to extract a password from a hash. Not for actually doing so, massive difference.
    - rosser 8y ago
- rayiner 8y ago
  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-Urquidez 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 Justice Rehnquist authored the opinion for the Court, joined by Justices White, Scalia, Kennedy and O'Connor, contending that "the people" intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment were the people of the United States, and that the defendant's "legal but involuntary presence" on U.S. soil (a direct result of his arrest) failed to create a sufficient relationship with the U.S. to allow him to call upon the Constitution for protection.[1]
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    Well... the first amendment doesn't mention the people. It just says "Congress shall make no law..." So I'm not sure the same logic applies.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. How does a Fourth Amendment case turning on the interpretation of specific language that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? (Also, since the alleged conspiracy was related to acts that would be committed within the US, by a US citizen, it's far from clear whether, even if the rationale of the case you cite did apply, the result would still be that there was insufficient relationship to the U.S. with regard to the act in question.) Note that I don't think the First Amendment has any bearing on this case because of the actual conduct at issue, but if it did, I'm not seeing how the case you point to would make it inapplicable based on Assange’s citizenship and location.
    - mike00632 8y ago
      >... that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? It's commonly understood that the conduct of foreigners abroad is not protected by American rights. That is the legal basis for most of the 'War on Terror' military actions and one of the key reasons why the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was objectionable. The way our system understands the law means that American citizen Anway al-Awlaki (and his son) had rights that were violated when he was killed.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  That’s true, but you don’t get clicks from outrage by just saying the boring truth. I’ve also been reading rants from people who think the US is going to throw a bunch of other charges at him when he gets here, which is just hilariously wrong. In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. But again, that doesn’t feed the conspiracy-minded mob or generate clicks. Edit response to emiliobumachar: If the US broke international law and their treaties with the UK it would be a really bad look at the very least. Conversely if that doesn’t happen what are you going to be convinced of? (Sorry about responding this way, but after two months of getting no response from the mods about rate limiting me, I’m just adapting.)
  - emiliobumachar 8y ago
    If charges B-Z are in fact thrown into the mix after the plane lands, would you then be convinced of a politically motivated conspiracy?
  - acqq 8y ago
    > In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. Does anybody think UK would not give all the permissions when asked?
    - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
      The charges have to be based on new information, and the UK judiciary isn’t overtly political. All told I think Assange will go down for the hacking, and then be off to Sweden. After that I suspect the world at large will be done with him. He isn’t anything like as important as he and his few supporters seem to think.
deleted 8y ago
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ryanlol 8y ago
Isn’t that essentially the hacking equivalent of jaywalking? Why should it be prosecuted? I can’t really imagine a less serious offense than (maybe) trying and failing to crack hash.
- sigmar 8y ago
  Someone asking for your help in hacking a DoD network doesn't seem like jay-walking.
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    But they didn’t hack into the DoD network. Manning had already leaked everything by the time this happened. Assange didn’t succesfully crack the hash, it’s questionable if he even did anything with it. At best his crime is agreeing to help hack into the DoD network, not actually doing anything in furtherance of that. That’s a ridiculous thing to prosecute someone for.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      On the other hand, if the alleged facts are true, it does suggest mens rea: Assange wasn't a mere vehicle for reporting information (which would entitle him to free press defense), but he was actively soliciting the crime of leaking confidential information.
    - sigmar 8y ago
      Manning was definitely still leaking while talking to Assange.[1] and there is no public information about whether or not Assange cracked the hashes (only that he offered to). [1] https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1063479777632374784 https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/10634797776323747...
      - ryanlol 8y ago
        Okay, it seems like Manning was uploading the leak to WL when this happened. Did Manning provide any new data after this conversation?
wallace_f 8y ago
As a layman on the subject, I guess cryptographers are attempting to crack keys every day... With house locks, it's a plain distinction between breaking into a lock and breaking into a house. With cryptography, I imagine that distinction is really problematic? Though I'm aware in Assange's case they do have proof of intent, but I wonder if it sets bad precedent, or is a case where they just dug up either far-reaching, obscure, or some law which is practically never really enforced? Edit: my original comment was written poorly
- andrewnicolalde 8y ago
  I believe in this case it is because that key belonged to a US military computer system and was being cracked to access the data it protected.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    I guess with house locks, it's a plain distinction between breaking into a lock and breaking into a house. With cryptography, I imagine that distinction is really problematic? Though I'm aware in Assange's case they do have proof of intent, but I wonder if it sets bad precedent, or is a case where they just dug up some law which is practically never really enforced?
    - throwawayjava 8y ago
      He took specific steps (cracking a hash) with the clear intent of helping break into a government owned computer system. I'm not sure what the gray area is supposed to be here. If I teach you lock picking skills as a fun hobby, that's clearly okay. If I teach you lock picking skills knowing you aspire to be a house robber, that is grayish legally and wrong ethically. But if I break into a specific bank vault for you to help you steal stuff, and we talked about stealing the stuff before I helped you, then I'm clearly involved in a criminal conspiracy. Assange committed a crime, and if he played the same role in helping to empty your bank account you'd want these laws to exist. The ethical question here is about whether that crime was ethically jusified. I.e., it's about civil disobedience, not about whether blatant conspiracy should be legal.
ehaliewicz2 8y ago
The 1st amendment simply prohibits the united states government from abridging freedom of speech.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Putting thousands of people's lives in danger because you're not careful isn't freedom of speech [0]. If Assange cared about freedom of speech, he wouldn't have called the Panama leaks an attack on Putin fueled by Soros [1]. Is it a coincidence that almost all Wikileaks cables are about the US, and never anything about Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and so on? I definitely don't think he should be prosecuted for journalism, but if it is shown that he was Putin's puppet and intentionally helped meddle in US election, then he does deserve whatever sentence he receives. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leak-at-wikileaks-accidental-release-of-us-cables-endangers-sources-a-783084.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leak-at-wikileaks... [1] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352
  - freeflight 8y ago
    Afaik that Wikileaks tweet about the Panama Papers was referring to the fact that the full papers were never released [0]. While at the same time most of the MSM coverage focused solely on the Russian/Putin angle, making the Panama Papers more about Putin than anything else. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-slams-panama-papers-trickle-down-strategy/a-19170435 https://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-slams-panama-papers-trickle-...
    - ehsankia 8y ago
      But what was the purpose of throwing Soros in there?
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    > Is it a coincidence that almost all Wikileaks cables are about the US, and never anything about Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and so on? Perhaps it makes Americans feel bad about themselves to hear this, but there are people in the world who feel that America and its 5-eyes allies are actually doing more harm to the world than Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and "so on" - by way of endless, illegal, heinous wars wherein crimes against humanity are constantly ignored by the only people who have the power to do something about it: The American People. Alas, The American People are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the realisation that many outside of America's reality-distortion fields have already had: America is a net evil force in the world, and its illegal wars must be stopped at all costs. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen. 500,000+ dead victims of America's illegal wars. When Russia and/or China have invaded and destroyed as many sovereign states as the USA has, then the moral stance you propose would be relevant. But, since neither Russia or China have started and engaged in countless, endless illegal wars of aggression in the last decade, the equivalence you desire is inappropriate. America and its allies are committing war crimes daily and have been doing so for decades. Without doing something effective about that, The American People have no chance to do something, next, about Russia or China. It simply doesn't work.
nabla9 8y ago
> 1st amendment protection even applicable to foreigners on foreign soil? It seems to do so. >The Constitution does distinguish in some respects between the rights of citizens and noncitizens: the right not to be discriminatorily denied the vote and the right to run for federal elective office are expressly restricted to citizens.12 All other rights, however, are written without such a limitation. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection guarantees extend to all "persons." The rights attaching to criminal trials, including the right to a public trial, a trial by jury, the assistance of a lawyer, and the right to confront adverse witnesses, all apply to "the accused." And both the First Amendment's protections of political and religious freedoms and the Fourth Amendment's protection of privacy and liberty apply to "the people." https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
- rayiner 8y ago
  No. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/259/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/259/
  - nabla9 8y ago
    That's decision on 4th amendment requirements for issuing warrants.
deleted 8y ago
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abugheratwork 8y ago
> What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? Is doing math a form of expression? Breaking a password amounts to thinking for a very long time about all the ways you could rearrange some bits, and choosing one. I'd call it an expression of preference for certain possible results over others, by way of saving one and letting the rest go. I know, I'm laughing at the thought of framing a cracked password because you're so proud of your expressive art. Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say, "You may not run that program."
- belltaco 8y ago
  >Is doing math a form of expression? Breaking a password amounts to thinking for a very long time about all the ways you could rearrange some bits, and choosing one. I'd call it an expression of preference for certain possible results over others, by way of saving one and letting the rest go. Isn't shooting a gun at someone a matter of depressing a lever? It's about applying pressure on a lever with your finger. >Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say, "You may not run that program." Are you also deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say "You may not press that lever". Isn't the US firing nukes a matter of the US president entering numbers and pressing some buttons? Isn't running into and maiming a pedestrian while driving a car at a traffic crossing a matter of actually doing nothing instead of braking? Are you deeply uncomfortable with the thought of govt jailing you for literally doing nothing?
  - thanatos_dem 8y ago
    > Are you deeply uncomfortable with the thought of govt jailing you for literally doing nothing? Yes? I’d be concerned for anyone who isn’t. And to be clear... he didn’t crack it. I’ve run password hashes through rainbow tables for shits and giggles. Should I be dragged out of an embassy next?
    - rocqua 8y ago
      How did you get those hashes? What did you (intend to) do with the resulting passwords. Luckily, intent still counts for something legally.
gnu8 8y ago
For someone who isn’t a citizen of the United States, it’s not illegal to fight against the military of the United States. It’s not possible for Assange to have committed a crime here. Would you suggest indicting a drone operator of the US Air Force for violating Afghanistan’s law against murdering people?
- torstenvl 8y ago
  Yes. Actually, it is. You have to be a lawful combatant to receive combatant immunity under international law. The U.S. Air Force consists of lawful combatants. They are members of the armed forces and wear uniforms that readily distinguish themselves as combatants, which permits the opposing party to a conflict to abide by principles of distinction and proportionality. They are therefore disanalogous. CIA operatives, however, engaged in spying or armed conflict, arguably do not enjoy combatant immunity. If the Taliban had captured a CIA drone operator, there is a strong argument that they could have tried, convicted, and sentenced the operator without violating international law. What part of The Hague Convention of 1907, the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, or the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 did you rely on in forming the opinion you've just shared with us?
  - gnu8 8y ago
    The United States itself does not respect international law and does not permit its soldiers to be prosecuted in the ICJ under any circumstances. Therefore there is no reason to afford it any similar consideration. International law is largely a myth due to the extreme power differential between the United States and most other countries. The only hard and fast rule is that might makes right.
    - torstenvl 8y ago
      The ICJ handles dispute between states. It has no authority to prosecute the soldiers of any country. You are, perhaps, referring to the ICC, established by the Rome Statute - to which the United States is not a party. The issue of whether the United States respects international law is not likely to be conducive to productive conversation on HN. It is also beside the point of this specific topic.
decebalus1 8y ago
> Also, is the 1st amendment protection even applicable to foreigners on foreign soil? If the US can prosecute foreigners doing foreign things on foreign soil, it should also strip them of all their rights. Is that your reasoning?
tomohawk 8y ago
The US Constitution protects US Persons regardless of where they may be. This is a broader category than US Citizens. It includes, for example, green card holders. The US Constitution also protects, to a certain extent, non US Persons, but only in the US or on US territory.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
>What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? The whole First Amendment, which explicitly exists to defend the freedom of the press. What sort of person thinks that its legal, desirable, or consistent with a free society for the government to tell individuals at the point of a gun what they are allowed to do or say? What sort of sick society do we live in where a significant portion of the populace thinks that its acceptable that government claims of secrecy are sacrosanct and beyond question? The whole case against Assange is based on Wikileaks' exposure of US war crimes via the Bradley/Chelsea Manning leak almost a decade ago. None of the war criminals exposed by those leaks have been prosecuted - only those who exposed their crimes. Anyone who isn't absolutely outraged and disgusted by this is a blot on society and a moral failure in every way.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  > What sort of person thinks that its legal, desirable, or consistent with a free society for the government to tell individuals at the point of a gun what they are allowed to do Isn't this the basis of all law?

apsec112 8y ago

Yes, First Amendment protections apply to non-Americans. However, as you say, Assange is being prosecuted for conspiracy to hack computers, not for his speech.

slg 8y ago
Non-Americans are certainly protected by the Constitution while in the US, but I thought there was still a legal debate about whether the US Constitution fully applies to foreign nationals while outside the US. Hasn't that long been the legal excuse used for things like international mass surveillance and what goes on in Guantanamo Bay?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. For the US to prosecute Assange, they have to prosecute him in the US, where he does enjoy First Amendment protections, as the First Amendment limits what Congress (and via the Fourteenth, state/local as well) can do.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It also limits what speech congress can make illegal, effectively controlling what the executive branch can do because of speech.
  - oliveshell 8y ago
    Exactly. If a person is on trial in the U.S. for breaking U.S. law, then U.S. constitutional protections apply— regardless of citizenship or where the alleged crime took place.
  - slg 8y ago
    I think you are misinterpreting the question. The US Constitution obviously has no legal impact on the laws of Saudi Arabia. The question is whether the US government needs to follow the US Constitution when dealing with a non-US citizen on non-US soil. There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. That is why US citizens involved with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or similar hostile organizations will occasionally receive a domestic trial in the criminal justice system while non-citizens generally only face military trials if anything.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > There seems to be a precedent that US citizens have different legal protections from the US government while abroad when compared with non-citizens. It's an interesting situation, as there's counter-examples; the Constitution doesn't, for example, appear to permit assassinations (certainly not of citizens without a trial), but they went ahead and droned Anwar al-Awlaki without any apparent legal consequences.
      - cbnotfromthere 8y ago
        You seem to willingly confusing "assassinations" with "acts of war". Anwar Al-Awlaki was unquestionably an enemy combatant due to his overt belonging to a non-state actor engaged in military combat with the United States.
  - droithomme 8y ago
    > The First Amendment doesn't apply to anyone while outside the US. A US citizen in Saudi Arabia doesn't have First Amendment protections there. First Amendment deals with US federal government and states. Neither the federal government nor the states can prosecute you for free speech you engage in as US citizen or resident while in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government might choose to prosecute you, but the first amendment does prohibit the US government from prosecuting you for speech made overseas as well as on US soil. An american journalist is living in Brazil and writes an article critical of the US government. The US government can not prosecute them simply because they wrote the article while out of the country.
- austincheney 8y ago
  Guantanamo Bay is American soil similar to embassies in foreign cities.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    Embassies aren't "foreign soil". There are restrictions based on international treaties, but they're nothing like foreign soil at all.
  - slg 8y ago
    >Guantanamo Bay is American soil That doesn't seem to be 100% settled law either. The US government has argued both sides in different court cases.
- Iv 8y ago
  It would be a pretty fucked up logic if US laws applied outside US but the document that prevents US laws from becoming tyrannical would not. That would simply be evil.
pytester 8y ago
He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value on behalf of Manning and encouraging him to leak more information (Obama's DOJ refused to make this charge because it's something all journalists do).
- acqq 8y ago
  > He's being prosecuted for allegedly extracting a password from a hash value They don't claim Assange extracted a password. They just claim that Assange said in the chat "no luck so far"! That is, that he wrote to Manning that he tried. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... The indictment is "conspiracy" with Manning. So there's certainly something to back up the claim from this title https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11-2019-1.5093429/julian-assange-s-arrest-is-a-vendetta-not-justice-says-friend-vaughan-smith-1.5093432 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-11... namely, that "Assange's arrest is 'a vendetta, not justice'" For more context, at the moment this news from ca one month ago have even more sense: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-manning-judge-jails-wikileaks-case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann... "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case"
  - nickysielicki 8y ago
    > Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to Assange. Fun to see them exonerate themselves for using broken security by calling a hash a, "portion of the password".
- ryanlol 8y ago
  No, he's being prosecuted for allegedly agreeing to extract a password from a hash. Not for actually doing so, massive difference.
  - rosser 8y ago
rayiner 8y ago
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-Urquidez 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 Justice Rehnquist authored the opinion for the Court, joined by Justices White, Scalia, Kennedy and O'Connor, contending that "the people" intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment were the people of the United States, and that the defendant's "legal but involuntary presence" on U.S. soil (a direct result of his arrest) failed to create a sufficient relationship with the U.S. to allow him to call upon the Constitution for protection.[1]
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Well... the first amendment doesn't mention the people. It just says "Congress shall make no law..." So I'm not sure the same logic applies.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The First Amendment probably does not apply to non-Americans with respect to their conduct abroad. How does a Fourth Amendment case turning on the interpretation of specific language that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? (Also, since the alleged conspiracy was related to acts that would be committed within the US, by a US citizen, it's far from clear whether, even if the rationale of the case you cite did apply, the result would still be that there was insufficient relationship to the U.S. with regard to the act in question.) Note that I don't think the First Amendment has any bearing on this case because of the actual conduct at issue, but if it did, I'm not seeing how the case you point to would make it inapplicable based on Assange’s citizenship and location.
  - mike00632 8y ago
    >... that is not present in the First Amendment lead to that conclusion? It's commonly understood that the conduct of foreigners abroad is not protected by American rights. That is the legal basis for most of the 'War on Terror' military actions and one of the key reasons why the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was objectionable. The way our system understands the law means that American citizen Anway al-Awlaki (and his son) had rights that were violated when he was killed.
toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
That’s true, but you don’t get clicks from outrage by just saying the boring truth. I’ve also been reading rants from people who think the US is going to throw a bunch of other charges at him when he gets here, which is just hilariously wrong. In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. But again, that doesn’t feed the conspiracy-minded mob or generate clicks. Edit response to emiliobumachar: If the US broke international law and their treaties with the UK it would be a really bad look at the very least. Conversely if that doesn’t happen what are you going to be convinced of? (Sorry about responding this way, but after two months of getting no response from the mods about rate limiting me, I’m just adapting.)
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  If charges B-Z are in fact thrown into the mix after the plane lands, would you then be convinced of a politically motivated conspiracy?
- acqq 8y ago
  > In general a state can’t request extradition on charge A then throw B-Z into the mix when the plane lands. The only way to expand on the original charges are with permission from the country which received the original request on the basis of new information. Does anybody think UK would not give all the permissions when asked?
  - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
    The charges have to be based on new information, and the UK judiciary isn’t overtly political. All told I think Assange will go down for the hacking, and then be off to Sweden. After that I suspect the world at large will be done with him. He isn’t anything like as important as he and his few supporters seem to think.

deleted 8y ago

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ryanlol 8y ago

Isn’t that essentially the hacking equivalent of jaywalking? Why should it be prosecuted? I can’t really imagine a less serious offense than (maybe) trying and failing to crack hash.

sigmar 8y ago
Someone asking for your help in hacking a DoD network doesn't seem like jay-walking.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  But they didn’t hack into the DoD network. Manning had already leaked everything by the time this happened. Assange didn’t succesfully crack the hash, it’s questionable if he even did anything with it. At best his crime is agreeing to help hack into the DoD network, not actually doing anything in furtherance of that. That’s a ridiculous thing to prosecute someone for.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    On the other hand, if the alleged facts are true, it does suggest mens rea: Assange wasn't a mere vehicle for reporting information (which would entitle him to free press defense), but he was actively soliciting the crime of leaking confidential information.
  - sigmar 8y ago
    Manning was definitely still leaking while talking to Assange.[1] and there is no public information about whether or not Assange cracked the hashes (only that he offered to). [1] https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1063479777632374784 https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/10634797776323747...
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      Okay, it seems like Manning was uploading the leak to WL when this happened. Did Manning provide any new data after this conversation?

wallace_f 8y ago

As a layman on the subject, I guess cryptographers are attempting to crack keys every day... With house locks, it's a plain distinction between breaking into a lock and breaking into a house. With cryptography, I imagine that distinction is really problematic? Though I'm aware in Assange's case they do have proof of intent, but I wonder if it sets bad precedent, or is a case where they just dug up either far-reaching, obscure, or some law which is practically never really enforced? Edit: my original comment was written poorly

andrewnicolalde 8y ago
I believe in this case it is because that key belonged to a US military computer system and was being cracked to access the data it protected.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  I guess with house locks, it's a plain distinction between breaking into a lock and breaking into a house. With cryptography, I imagine that distinction is really problematic? Though I'm aware in Assange's case they do have proof of intent, but I wonder if it sets bad precedent, or is a case where they just dug up some law which is practically never really enforced?
  - throwawayjava 8y ago
    He took specific steps (cracking a hash) with the clear intent of helping break into a government owned computer system. I'm not sure what the gray area is supposed to be here. If I teach you lock picking skills as a fun hobby, that's clearly okay. If I teach you lock picking skills knowing you aspire to be a house robber, that is grayish legally and wrong ethically. But if I break into a specific bank vault for you to help you steal stuff, and we talked about stealing the stuff before I helped you, then I'm clearly involved in a criminal conspiracy. Assange committed a crime, and if he played the same role in helping to empty your bank account you'd want these laws to exist. The ethical question here is about whether that crime was ethically jusified. I.e., it's about civil disobedience, not about whether blatant conspiracy should be legal.

ehaliewicz2 8y ago

The 1st amendment simply prohibits the united states government from abridging freedom of speech.

ehsankia 8y ago
Putting thousands of people's lives in danger because you're not careful isn't freedom of speech [0]. If Assange cared about freedom of speech, he wouldn't have called the Panama leaks an attack on Putin fueled by Soros [1]. Is it a coincidence that almost all Wikileaks cables are about the US, and never anything about Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and so on? I definitely don't think he should be prosecuted for journalism, but if it is shown that he was Putin's puppet and intentionally helped meddle in US election, then he does deserve whatever sentence he receives. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leak-at-wikileaks-accidental-release-of-us-cables-endangers-sources-a-783084.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leak-at-wikileaks... [1] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352
- freeflight 8y ago
  Afaik that Wikileaks tweet about the Panama Papers was referring to the fact that the full papers were never released [0]. While at the same time most of the MSM coverage focused solely on the Russian/Putin angle, making the Panama Papers more about Putin than anything else. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-slams-panama-papers-trickle-down-strategy/a-19170435 https://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-slams-panama-papers-trickle-...
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    But what was the purpose of throwing Soros in there?
- fit2rule 8y ago
  > Is it a coincidence that almost all Wikileaks cables are about the US, and never anything about Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and so on? Perhaps it makes Americans feel bad about themselves to hear this, but there are people in the world who feel that America and its 5-eyes allies are actually doing more harm to the world than Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and "so on" - by way of endless, illegal, heinous wars wherein crimes against humanity are constantly ignored by the only people who have the power to do something about it: The American People. Alas, The American People are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the realisation that many outside of America's reality-distortion fields have already had: America is a net evil force in the world, and its illegal wars must be stopped at all costs. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen. 500,000+ dead victims of America's illegal wars. When Russia and/or China have invaded and destroyed as many sovereign states as the USA has, then the moral stance you propose would be relevant. But, since neither Russia or China have started and engaged in countless, endless illegal wars of aggression in the last decade, the equivalence you desire is inappropriate. America and its allies are committing war crimes daily and have been doing so for decades. Without doing something effective about that, The American People have no chance to do something, next, about Russia or China. It simply doesn't work.

nabla9 8y ago

> 1st amendment protection even applicable to foreigners on foreign soil? It seems to do so. >The Constitution does distinguish in some respects between the rights of citizens and noncitizens: the right not to be discriminatorily denied the vote and the right to run for federal elective office are expressly restricted to citizens.12 All other rights, however, are written without such a limitation. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection guarantees extend to all "persons." The rights attaching to criminal trials, including the right to a public trial, a trial by jury, the assistance of a lawyer, and the right to confront adverse witnesses, all apply to "the accused." And both the First Amendment's protections of political and religious freedoms and the Fourth Amendment's protection of privacy and liberty apply to "the people." https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

rayiner 8y ago
No. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/259/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/259/
- nabla9 8y ago
  That's decision on 4th amendment requirements for issuing warrants.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

abugheratwork 8y ago

> What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? Is doing math a form of expression? Breaking a password amounts to thinking for a very long time about all the ways you could rearrange some bits, and choosing one. I'd call it an expression of preference for certain possible results over others, by way of saving one and letting the rest go. I know, I'm laughing at the thought of framing a cracked password because you're so proud of your expressive art. Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say, "You may not run that program."

belltaco 8y ago
>Is doing math a form of expression? Breaking a password amounts to thinking for a very long time about all the ways you could rearrange some bits, and choosing one. I'd call it an expression of preference for certain possible results over others, by way of saving one and letting the rest go. Isn't shooting a gun at someone a matter of depressing a lever? It's about applying pressure on a lever with your finger. >Still, I am deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say, "You may not run that program." Are you also deeply uncomfortable with a government having the authority to say "You may not press that lever". Isn't the US firing nukes a matter of the US president entering numbers and pressing some buttons? Isn't running into and maiming a pedestrian while driving a car at a traffic crossing a matter of actually doing nothing instead of braking? Are you deeply uncomfortable with the thought of govt jailing you for literally doing nothing?
- thanatos_dem 8y ago
  > Are you deeply uncomfortable with the thought of govt jailing you for literally doing nothing? Yes? I’d be concerned for anyone who isn’t. And to be clear... he didn’t crack it. I’ve run password hashes through rainbow tables for shits and giggles. Should I be dragged out of an embassy next?
  - rocqua 8y ago
    How did you get those hashes? What did you (intend to) do with the resulting passwords. Luckily, intent still counts for something legally.

gnu8 8y ago

For someone who isn’t a citizen of the United States, it’s not illegal to fight against the military of the United States. It’s not possible for Assange to have committed a crime here. Would you suggest indicting a drone operator of the US Air Force for violating Afghanistan’s law against murdering people?

torstenvl 8y ago
Yes. Actually, it is. You have to be a lawful combatant to receive combatant immunity under international law. The U.S. Air Force consists of lawful combatants. They are members of the armed forces and wear uniforms that readily distinguish themselves as combatants, which permits the opposing party to a conflict to abide by principles of distinction and proportionality. They are therefore disanalogous. CIA operatives, however, engaged in spying or armed conflict, arguably do not enjoy combatant immunity. If the Taliban had captured a CIA drone operator, there is a strong argument that they could have tried, convicted, and sentenced the operator without violating international law. What part of The Hague Convention of 1907, the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, or the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 did you rely on in forming the opinion you've just shared with us?
- gnu8 8y ago
  The United States itself does not respect international law and does not permit its soldiers to be prosecuted in the ICJ under any circumstances. Therefore there is no reason to afford it any similar consideration. International law is largely a myth due to the extreme power differential between the United States and most other countries. The only hard and fast rule is that might makes right.
  - torstenvl 8y ago
    The ICJ handles dispute between states. It has no authority to prosecute the soldiers of any country. You are, perhaps, referring to the ICC, established by the Rome Statute - to which the United States is not a party. The issue of whether the United States respects international law is not likely to be conducive to productive conversation on HN. It is also beside the point of this specific topic.

decebalus1 8y ago

> Also, is the 1st amendment protection even applicable to foreigners on foreign soil? If the US can prosecute foreigners doing foreign things on foreign soil, it should also strip them of all their rights. Is that your reasoning?

tomohawk 8y ago

The US Constitution protects US Persons regardless of where they may be. This is a broader category than US Citizens. It includes, for example, green card holders. The US Constitution also protects, to a certain extent, non US Persons, but only in the US or on US territory.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago

>What part of the first amendment exonerates knowingly attempting to crack NTLM keys of US military logins? The whole First Amendment, which explicitly exists to defend the freedom of the press. What sort of person thinks that its legal, desirable, or consistent with a free society for the government to tell individuals at the point of a gun what they are allowed to do or say? What sort of sick society do we live in where a significant portion of the populace thinks that its acceptable that government claims of secrecy are sacrosanct and beyond question? The whole case against Assange is based on Wikileaks' exposure of US war crimes via the Bradley/Chelsea Manning leak almost a decade ago. None of the war criminals exposed by those leaks have been prosecuted - only those who exposed their crimes. Anyone who isn't absolutely outraged and disgusted by this is a blot on society and a moral failure in every way.

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
> What sort of person thinks that its legal, desirable, or consistent with a free society for the government to tell individuals at the point of a gun what they are allowed to do Isn't this the basis of all law?