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I know he published U.S. government secrets (CIA files, that Iraq military video, etc). But what U.S. government crimes did he expose? I think Assange is mostl

I know he published U.S. government secrets (CIA files, that Iraq military video, etc). But what U.S. government crimes did he expose? I think Assange is mostly a sleazy guy who allowed himself to be a tool for Russia in 2016. But I still think he should be protected from U.S. charges by the First Amendment, regardless of whatever minor "assistance" he provided to Chelsea Manning. Snowden on the other hand is a hero that acted perfectly ethically and exposed clearly criminal violations of the U.S. Fourth Amendment. He should be protected as a whistleblower.

sgift 7y ago
> But what U.S. government crimes did he expose? Google, "Collateral Murder" You're welcome.
- staunch 7y ago
  I referenced that video so I'm clearly aware of it. Assange putting "murder" in the title doesn't actually make it illegal homocide. That's not how any legal system works. IMHO that incident is unfortunate because some of those people were innocent, and it is legally questionable, but there's also a strong argument that it was legal. A very far cry from exposing something clearly illegal like the My Lai Massacre or Abu Ghraib torture. So all he's done is expose one legally questionable incident from 2007 by a single military unit during the Iraq war? I suppose I'm not forgetting anything then.
  - metalens 7y ago
    Legally questionable?
    - staunch 7y ago
      > Mark Taylor, an international law expert and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, told Al Jazeera "there's a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed." He added, "I think what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike#Legality_of_the_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri... You're free to argue that the laws of war should be stricter. But even if they were changed, it wouldn't retroactively make this incident illegal. It may or may not have been legal (i.e. it's legally questionable), whether you like or agree with the actions is a separate issue. Contrast this incident with the case of that Navy SEAL murdering a POW. That's not legally questionable, that's very clearly illegal.
      - pytester 7y ago
        The legality of the incident relies upon the notion that a camera's telephoto lens could be mistaken for an RPG. Watching the video is enough to dispel that.
        staunch 7y ago
        No, it's much more complex than that. Some of the men were very clearly armed, which anyone who watches the video can see for themselves. Even Assange acknowledged this fact. The most legally questionable part (I believe) is firing on the van that was evacuating wounded people. The best ethical defense to that attack was that they didn't know children were in there and the driver is primarily to blame for what happened to them. But even if it was most likely an ethically wrong decision, that doesn't make it automatically illegal.
        brokenmachine 7y ago
        Even without children in the van, is it legal to fire on an unarmed person in a van picking up the wounded? And all these arguments are spurious IMO. Collateral Murder exposed what was being done secretly overseas in US citizens' name. If it wasn't illegal then there should be no problem showing their people exactly what their war budget is paying for.
        geezerjay 7y ago
        > Watching the video is enough to dispel that. Doesn't the video show a group of gunmen who the camera guy was following around?
  - cyphar 7y ago
    Killing first-responders is a war crime not a "questionable incident", regardless of their conduct while killing innocent civilians. You're also implying that this is the only case where something like this happened. It's only the only one we know about. In addition, the Iraqi and Afghan war logs showed evidence of massive underreporting of civilian casualties and cases of friendly-fire. Cases of DoD contractors hiring child prostitutes. Cases of soldiers firing into enemy combatants that were surrendering. Handing prisoners over to Iraqi custody even though they knew they would likely be tortured. Lack of investigation into reports of abuse, torture, rape by Iraqi police. And so on.
    - staunch 7y ago
      Your characterization of the incident could simply be wrong, legally speaking. Were those first responders, or merely enemy combatants helping their fellow enemy combatants escape? Are soldiers required to let wounded enemies escape? What if they're not in uniform? What if innocents would die? It's very possible that it was completely legal under the international rules of war (Geneva Conventions, etc), whether or not you or I like what happened. And I'm well aware that many other unfortunate and illegal things happened during the Iraq War. I referenced Abu Grahib. But the topic here was scoped to U.S. gov crimes exposed by Assange. Edit: I did actually write "questionable incident" and that's what I meant there, my mistake.
      - dev_dull 7y ago
        I (the GP) actually agree with you. The point in making my distinction wasn't that I think one is criminal and one is not. I think they're both criminal, however there's clearly a political angle being played in both.
belorn 7y ago
Are we talking about any crimes, or just crimes that would also be illegal in the US? If we are just talking any crime, planting spying equipment in the UN building is illegal. The building is not international water where no law applies. Diplomatic immunity make it hard to prosecute, but it is still a crime. If we are only talking about crime that is also a crime in the US then Employees of DynCorp, a US government contractor funded by U.S. tax dollars in Afghanistan paid for the services of underage "dancing boys". Child prostitution is a crime in the US. To the degree that US diplomats was aware of the situation and did not act they are complicit in the crime by continuing providing the funds for it. There are multiple companies like Boeing, MasterCard, Visa, Monsanto where US diplomats and US politicians gave directly support during international deals. It is unclear how much government employees can go in and directly support a company, especially those that also donate a lot of money to political campaigns.
plugger 7y ago
> But I still think he should be protected from U.S. charges by the First Amendment, regardless of whatever minor "assistance" he provided to Chelsea Manning. Did you read the indictment? Do you honestly believe Assange supplying Manning with a live Linux distro, getting him to dump the password hash of the administrator account of a DoD server with said distro, and then attempting to brute force it after Manning supplied him the hash minor? Curious.
- staunch 7y ago
  I think those are minor, yes. None of that is actually hacking. That kind of assistance is available to anyone with access to a search engine. Live Linux distros are freely available to anyone, they don't have to be "supplied". Assange failed to crack the password so that was just an embarrassing attempt at providing assistance. Knowingly providing assistance to a crime is illegal, I'm not arguing that it's not. Just that in these kinds of cases it should be protected. Assisting someone in photocopying classified documents is illegal too, but should also be protected. If Assange had ssh'd into a server and started running exploits I'd say he certainly crossed the line from journalist to hacker. His assistance may have pushed the boundaries of what is journalistic but I'd still err on the side of protecting him rather than risk diminishing the First Amendment. At the end of the day, it was Manning that did the hacking and copying of data. Without her actions, there would have been no crime at all.
  - plugger 7y ago
    From how I read the indictment, Manning had finished dumping what she could with her level of access and then Assange urged her to do more. Then Assange provided the live Linux Distro and the process for dumping the admin password hash. Manning then supplied the hash to Assange who then began to attempt to brute force it. I don't believe these sort of cases should be protected when they reach that level. I do believe that up until the point Assange started actively assisting Manning in compromising DoD systems from the level of access Manning had was where he crossed the line. If he would have just taken the data Manning provided at her level of access that imo is journalism. Attempting to brute force password hashes to give you admin access to DoD systems, that's a computer crime and should be treated as such.

sgift 7y ago

> But what U.S. government crimes did he expose? Google, "Collateral Murder" You're welcome.

staunch 7y ago
I referenced that video so I'm clearly aware of it. Assange putting "murder" in the title doesn't actually make it illegal homocide. That's not how any legal system works. IMHO that incident is unfortunate because some of those people were innocent, and it is legally questionable, but there's also a strong argument that it was legal. A very far cry from exposing something clearly illegal like the My Lai Massacre or Abu Ghraib torture. So all he's done is expose one legally questionable incident from 2007 by a single military unit during the Iraq war? I suppose I'm not forgetting anything then.
- metalens 7y ago
  Legally questionable?
  - staunch 7y ago
    > Mark Taylor, an international law expert and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, told Al Jazeera "there's a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed." He added, "I think what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike#Legality_of_the_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri... You're free to argue that the laws of war should be stricter. But even if they were changed, it wouldn't retroactively make this incident illegal. It may or may not have been legal (i.e. it's legally questionable), whether you like or agree with the actions is a separate issue. Contrast this incident with the case of that Navy SEAL murdering a POW. That's not legally questionable, that's very clearly illegal.
    - pytester 7y ago
      The legality of the incident relies upon the notion that a camera's telephoto lens could be mistaken for an RPG. Watching the video is enough to dispel that.
      - staunch 7y ago
        No, it's much more complex than that. Some of the men were very clearly armed, which anyone who watches the video can see for themselves. Even Assange acknowledged this fact. The most legally questionable part (I believe) is firing on the van that was evacuating wounded people. The best ethical defense to that attack was that they didn't know children were in there and the driver is primarily to blame for what happened to them. But even if it was most likely an ethically wrong decision, that doesn't make it automatically illegal.
        brokenmachine 7y ago
        Even without children in the van, is it legal to fire on an unarmed person in a van picking up the wounded? And all these arguments are spurious IMO. Collateral Murder exposed what was being done secretly overseas in US citizens' name. If it wasn't illegal then there should be no problem showing their people exactly what their war budget is paying for.
      - geezerjay 7y ago
        > Watching the video is enough to dispel that. Doesn't the video show a group of gunmen who the camera guy was following around?
- cyphar 7y ago
  Killing first-responders is a war crime not a "questionable incident", regardless of their conduct while killing innocent civilians. You're also implying that this is the only case where something like this happened. It's only the only one we know about. In addition, the Iraqi and Afghan war logs showed evidence of massive underreporting of civilian casualties and cases of friendly-fire. Cases of DoD contractors hiring child prostitutes. Cases of soldiers firing into enemy combatants that were surrendering. Handing prisoners over to Iraqi custody even though they knew they would likely be tortured. Lack of investigation into reports of abuse, torture, rape by Iraqi police. And so on.
  - staunch 7y ago
    Your characterization of the incident could simply be wrong, legally speaking. Were those first responders, or merely enemy combatants helping their fellow enemy combatants escape? Are soldiers required to let wounded enemies escape? What if they're not in uniform? What if innocents would die? It's very possible that it was completely legal under the international rules of war (Geneva Conventions, etc), whether or not you or I like what happened. And I'm well aware that many other unfortunate and illegal things happened during the Iraq War. I referenced Abu Grahib. But the topic here was scoped to U.S. gov crimes exposed by Assange. Edit: I did actually write "questionable incident" and that's what I meant there, my mistake.
    - dev_dull 7y ago
      I (the GP) actually agree with you. The point in making my distinction wasn't that I think one is criminal and one is not. I think they're both criminal, however there's clearly a political angle being played in both.

belorn 7y ago

Are we talking about any crimes, or just crimes that would also be illegal in the US? If we are just talking any crime, planting spying equipment in the UN building is illegal. The building is not international water where no law applies. Diplomatic immunity make it hard to prosecute, but it is still a crime. If we are only talking about crime that is also a crime in the US then Employees of DynCorp, a US government contractor funded by U.S. tax dollars in Afghanistan paid for the services of underage "dancing boys". Child prostitution is a crime in the US. To the degree that US diplomats was aware of the situation and did not act they are complicit in the crime by continuing providing the funds for it. There are multiple companies like Boeing, MasterCard, Visa, Monsanto where US diplomats and US politicians gave directly support during international deals. It is unclear how much government employees can go in and directly support a company, especially those that also donate a lot of money to political campaigns.

plugger 7y ago

> But I still think he should be protected from U.S. charges by the First Amendment, regardless of whatever minor "assistance" he provided to Chelsea Manning. Did you read the indictment? Do you honestly believe Assange supplying Manning with a live Linux distro, getting him to dump the password hash of the administrator account of a DoD server with said distro, and then attempting to brute force it after Manning supplied him the hash minor? Curious.

staunch 7y ago
I think those are minor, yes. None of that is actually hacking. That kind of assistance is available to anyone with access to a search engine. Live Linux distros are freely available to anyone, they don't have to be "supplied". Assange failed to crack the password so that was just an embarrassing attempt at providing assistance. Knowingly providing assistance to a crime is illegal, I'm not arguing that it's not. Just that in these kinds of cases it should be protected. Assisting someone in photocopying classified documents is illegal too, but should also be protected. If Assange had ssh'd into a server and started running exploits I'd say he certainly crossed the line from journalist to hacker. His assistance may have pushed the boundaries of what is journalistic but I'd still err on the side of protecting him rather than risk diminishing the First Amendment. At the end of the day, it was Manning that did the hacking and copying of data. Without her actions, there would have been no crime at all.
- plugger 7y ago
  From how I read the indictment, Manning had finished dumping what she could with her level of access and then Assange urged her to do more. Then Assange provided the live Linux Distro and the process for dumping the admin password hash. Manning then supplied the hash to Assange who then began to attempt to brute force it. I don't believe these sort of cases should be protected when they reach that level. I do believe that up until the point Assange started actively assisting Manning in compromising DoD systems from the level of access Manning had was where he crossed the line. If he would have just taken the data Manning provided at her level of access that imo is journalism. Attempting to brute force password hashes to give you admin access to DoD systems, that's a computer crime and should be treated as such.