3 ms·
To me, the most interesting point is that the Obama administration was in possession of the same information that the Trump administration used to accuse Assang
by GeekyBear 8y ago
To me, the most interesting point is that the Obama administration was in possession of the same information that the Trump administration used to accuse Assange of "hacking", and came to a very different conclusion.
>“The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists,” said former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “And if you are not going to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, which the department is not, then there is no way to prosecute Assange.”
Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-classified-documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia...
- DanBC 8y agoOne of the differences is that the Guardian has not, as far as I know, released the names of gay people living in Saudi Arabia, or Jewish people living in Baghdad.
- GeekyBear 8y agoIn fact, it was The Guardian that was responsible for unintentionally exposing the password to an archive containing the unredacted versions of a great deal of the State Department cables they had received from Wikileaks. They were somehow under the impression that the password they were given only applied to the copy of the archive that they were in possession of. When they wrote the story of the events, they included a copy of the password for the archive, despite the fact that the archive had ended up on BitTorrent.
- hurryskurry 8y agoWell Obama had a JD, and Trump has never read a book in his life. I wonder if that makes the difference.