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I still don't really understand how a journalist, non-U.S. citizen, operating entirely outside the U.S. is being indicted for anything. I understand he obtaine

I still don't really understand how a journalist, non-U.S. citizen, operating entirely outside the U.S. is being indicted for anything. I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them. However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws? I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law?

eurg 7y ago
China would say yes, and in such a case you should not ever be in a state that has and/or requires good diplomatic relationship with, or economic support from, China. Law is, after all, what gets executed, and debating whether it's right or wrong is a luxury you don't have when it's executed on you.
- dpwm 7y ago
  China actually hasn't overstated its jurisdiction anywhere near as egregiously as the US has.
  - eurg 7y ago
    Where they do have power, they wield it. See: international relations regarding Taiwan.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      They don't see their relations with Taiwan as international.
      - function_seven 7y ago
        Read it as "See: international relations [with the rest of the world] regarding [the subject of] Taiwan"
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    I'm sure it's just because they aren't in a powerful enough position to, not that they have qualms about it.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    Heard of Causeway Bay Books? One of the men was a Swedish citizen and was taken from his home in Thailand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
  - thelambentonion 7y ago
    China absolutely extends its jurisdiction to anywhere it thinks it can get away with it. cf. https://www.wsj.com/articles/famous-rich-powerful-missing-1539343848 https://www.wsj.com/articles/famous-rich-powerful-missing-15... https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...
    - kraftman 7y ago
      There's a difference between doing it 'legally' and illegally though...
    - baby 7y ago
      Kim dotcom
josteink 7y ago
Ofcourse not. That’d be ridiculous. But the US is somehow special.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  Where's the line though? What if you manage to blow up a building using nothing but your computer, outside of the US, as a non-US citizen. Should you then be subjected to US law?
vageli 7y ago
> I still don't really understand how a journalist, non-U.S. citizen, operating entirely outside the U.S. is being indicted for anything. > I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them. > However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws? > I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law? No but I wouldn't travel to China in that case.
- sneak 7y ago
  I am fairly certain that Julian Assange is doing or attempting literally everything theoretically or practically possible to avoid traveling to the United States.
mLuby 7y ago
Totally agree with your point. We're seeing the US flex its international power to get revenge rather than justice, and it's disconcerting to see how many "free" nations are allowing it to happen.
christophclarke 7y ago
Yes, this is the entire premise of extradition treaties. If you conspire to commit a crime in a different country, you are potentially able to be sent there to be put on trial. As to whether or not those laws are just is a separate issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition
- Traster 7y ago
  This is not a good understanding of Extradition. Extradition before the age of the internet involved identifying people who had in the past committed a crime in a certain jurisdiction and transporting them back there to face justice. So for example, I murder someone, I flee to the UK, the USA asks the UK to extradite me back. Or indeed JA (allegedly) rapes someone, flees to the UK, Sweden asks for extradition. What's at question here is: Given Assange was never in the US, how has he committed a crime in the US and the answer is that the US has a funny idea jurisdiction.
  - christophclarke 7y ago
    Crimes committed against the United States are seen as crimes committed in the United States. This is an issue of sovereignty, as there is no (for most intents and purposes) higher, international court to pursue the case in. Therefore, the case is tried in the United States. It's similar to any other foreign national conspiring in crime in the United States. They don't have to physically be in a country to break a country's laws. The country that the individual was in when the crime was committed can certainly handle the issue and not extradite, however, generally these agreements avoid that. This existed before the internet as well.
    - pablodh 7y ago
      So by your logic if any country in the world approves some law that you are not even aware of, voted on a parliament (at best), that you have no voice nor vote on, then you are subject to whatever the f*ck they decided to do?. That's just plainly insane.
PorterDuff 7y ago
Although I don't pretend to understand the specifics, I expect that any charges against him will be on the corner cases. They won't be a frontal assault on Wikileaks. After all, what's the difference between WL and the New York Times when you get right down to it? My guess is that hidden on page 1050 (or whatever) of the charges, the meat of the matter will be some sort of Swiss Army knife of Justice Department power involving a kind of conspiracy, meeting with C. Manning, or whatever. Truth is, they can put anyone in prison any time they like. Thank goodness the intelligence nomenklatura in this country isn't joined at the hip with the Googles, Facebooks, and AT&Ts of the world. Then where would we be?
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  > After all, what's the difference between WL and the New York Times The difference between WikiLeaks and the New York Times is that WikiLeaks would not have kept Bush's warrantless wiretapping program secret until after the 2004 election - at the request of the Bush administration.
  - rigoleto 7y ago
    What? NYT regularly publishes information unfavorable to the US government. WikiLeaks on the other hand participates directly in advancing Russian state aims.
    - panarky 7y ago
      "The New York Times had held the story at the request of the government." https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=312486719 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
      - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
        One of the most incredible things about that is that the New York Times only published the story when the journalist who had uncovered it threatened to publish it outside the paper. They were willing to sit on one of the biggest stories in their history, at the request of the government, until they were faced with the prospect of getting scooped. Wikileaks would have published right away, informing the US electorate (I mean, "interfering in the 2004 election by providing truthful information to the public").
colechristensen 7y ago
He instructed and encouraged Manning to steal information for him while Manning was on military duty. It is not clear he is a journalist as traditional journalism is pretty far away from what Wikileaks has done. It is also still not legal for journalists to direct people to steal classified information. Publishing it is not necessarily the crime, being involved in the acquisition is. This is why nobody is talking about charging or extraditing Glen Greenwald (published Snowden's materials). Assange was directly involved in getting the materials and exposed himself pretty easily to espionage charges. If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you?
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  > traditional journalism is pretty far away from what Wikileaks has done. What you're describing is exactly what investigative journalists do all the time: they encourage sources to leak classified information, which they then publish. > If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you? Espionage is when a government uses covert means to obtain information on a foreign government for its own gain. When an independent organization obtains and publishes government secrets that it deems to be in the public interest, that's normally called "journalism."
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > they encourage sources to leak classified information, which they then publish Where's the line between "encouraging a source", and trying to crack a salted password hash on their behalf so they can say "Here's the password, use this to get into this classified system"?
    - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      That's not what he's accused of doing. The password would not have given Manning access to additional information - just a way to cover her tracks. Whether Assange even tried to crack the password is just speculation, though.
duxup 7y ago
The actual charges hinge (at this point) on Assange supposedly helping someone to bypass some security to obtain that information. I don't think they were successful (legally that likely doesn't matter), and we'll how much actually counts as "help". So with your analogy you obtain information release it, and then help someone try to hack a computer to access more .... that's where we are at this point. It's a difference. Generally journalists don't help their sources hack into anything. I suspect if you did China would be happy to take you if they could extradite you.
bb88 7y ago
The heart of their indictment [1] is the conspiracy charge. Basically if you conspire to access a computer system, especially one owned by the US Military and containing classified information, they will come after you. 1: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566...
ScottFree 7y ago
> Should I be subject to Chinese law? Only if China can exert it's influence in the US. And it can, to a certain extent. It's not unheard of for China to demand that a citizen return home by threatening legal action against his or her family. If China had the same influence over the US as the US does over most of the European countries, then yes, you would be subject to Chinese law if they care enough to pursue it. Laws aren't magic. They're enforced by power. If any country has the power to enforce their own laws in foreign countries, they'll do it if it's important enough to them. In this case, the upside is definitely big enough. I'd be more worried and angry if I were a citizen of a European country. This isn't the first time this decade the US has violated the sovereignty of a European country.
baby 7y ago
A lot of Americans think he is the reason Trump got elected.

eurg 7y ago

China would say yes, and in such a case you should not ever be in a state that has and/or requires good diplomatic relationship with, or economic support from, China. Law is, after all, what gets executed, and debating whether it's right or wrong is a luxury you don't have when it's executed on you.

dpwm 7y ago
China actually hasn't overstated its jurisdiction anywhere near as egregiously as the US has.
- eurg 7y ago
  Where they do have power, they wield it. See: international relations regarding Taiwan.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    They don't see their relations with Taiwan as international.
    - function_seven 7y ago
      Read it as "See: international relations [with the rest of the world] regarding [the subject of] Taiwan"
- akvadrako 7y ago
  I'm sure it's just because they aren't in a powerful enough position to, not that they have qualms about it.
- keiferski 7y ago
  Heard of Causeway Bay Books? One of the men was a Swedish citizen and was taken from his home in Thailand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
- thelambentonion 7y ago
  China absolutely extends its jurisdiction to anywhere it thinks it can get away with it. cf. https://www.wsj.com/articles/famous-rich-powerful-missing-1539343848 https://www.wsj.com/articles/famous-rich-powerful-missing-15... https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...
  - kraftman 7y ago
    There's a difference between doing it 'legally' and illegally though...
  - baby 7y ago
    Kim dotcom

josteink 7y ago

Ofcourse not. That’d be ridiculous. But the US is somehow special.

ehsankia 7y ago
Where's the line though? What if you manage to blow up a building using nothing but your computer, outside of the US, as a non-US citizen. Should you then be subjected to US law?

vageli 7y ago

> I still don't really understand how a journalist, non-U.S. citizen, operating entirely outside the U.S. is being indicted for anything. > I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them. > However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws? > I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law? No but I wouldn't travel to China in that case.

sneak 7y ago
I am fairly certain that Julian Assange is doing or attempting literally everything theoretically or practically possible to avoid traveling to the United States.

mLuby 7y ago

Totally agree with your point. We're seeing the US flex its international power to get revenge rather than justice, and it's disconcerting to see how many "free" nations are allowing it to happen.

christophclarke 7y ago

Yes, this is the entire premise of extradition treaties. If you conspire to commit a crime in a different country, you are potentially able to be sent there to be put on trial. As to whether or not those laws are just is a separate issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition

Traster 7y ago
This is not a good understanding of Extradition. Extradition before the age of the internet involved identifying people who had in the past committed a crime in a certain jurisdiction and transporting them back there to face justice. So for example, I murder someone, I flee to the UK, the USA asks the UK to extradite me back. Or indeed JA (allegedly) rapes someone, flees to the UK, Sweden asks for extradition. What's at question here is: Given Assange was never in the US, how has he committed a crime in the US and the answer is that the US has a funny idea jurisdiction.
- christophclarke 7y ago
  Crimes committed against the United States are seen as crimes committed in the United States. This is an issue of sovereignty, as there is no (for most intents and purposes) higher, international court to pursue the case in. Therefore, the case is tried in the United States. It's similar to any other foreign national conspiring in crime in the United States. They don't have to physically be in a country to break a country's laws. The country that the individual was in when the crime was committed can certainly handle the issue and not extradite, however, generally these agreements avoid that. This existed before the internet as well.
  - pablodh 7y ago
    So by your logic if any country in the world approves some law that you are not even aware of, voted on a parliament (at best), that you have no voice nor vote on, then you are subject to whatever the f*ck they decided to do?. That's just plainly insane.

PorterDuff 7y ago

Although I don't pretend to understand the specifics, I expect that any charges against him will be on the corner cases. They won't be a frontal assault on Wikileaks. After all, what's the difference between WL and the New York Times when you get right down to it? My guess is that hidden on page 1050 (or whatever) of the charges, the meat of the matter will be some sort of Swiss Army knife of Justice Department power involving a kind of conspiracy, meeting with C. Manning, or whatever. Truth is, they can put anyone in prison any time they like. Thank goodness the intelligence nomenklatura in this country isn't joined at the hip with the Googles, Facebooks, and AT&Ts of the world. Then where would we be?

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> After all, what's the difference between WL and the New York Times The difference between WikiLeaks and the New York Times is that WikiLeaks would not have kept Bush's warrantless wiretapping program secret until after the 2004 election - at the request of the Bush administration.
- rigoleto 7y ago
  What? NYT regularly publishes information unfavorable to the US government. WikiLeaks on the other hand participates directly in advancing Russian state aims.
  - panarky 7y ago
    "The New York Times had held the story at the request of the government." https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=312486719 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
    - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      One of the most incredible things about that is that the New York Times only published the story when the journalist who had uncovered it threatened to publish it outside the paper. They were willing to sit on one of the biggest stories in their history, at the request of the government, until they were faced with the prospect of getting scooped. Wikileaks would have published right away, informing the US electorate (I mean, "interfering in the 2004 election by providing truthful information to the public").

colechristensen 7y ago

He instructed and encouraged Manning to steal information for him while Manning was on military duty. It is not clear he is a journalist as traditional journalism is pretty far away from what Wikileaks has done. It is also still not legal for journalists to direct people to steal classified information. Publishing it is not necessarily the crime, being involved in the acquisition is. This is why nobody is talking about charging or extraditing Glen Greenwald (published Snowden's materials). Assange was directly involved in getting the materials and exposed himself pretty easily to espionage charges. If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you?

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> traditional journalism is pretty far away from what Wikileaks has done. What you're describing is exactly what investigative journalists do all the time: they encourage sources to leak classified information, which they then publish. > If you don't agree about classifying that as espionage, what is espionage to you? Espionage is when a government uses covert means to obtain information on a foreign government for its own gain. When an independent organization obtains and publishes government secrets that it deems to be in the public interest, that's normally called "journalism."
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > they encourage sources to leak classified information, which they then publish Where's the line between "encouraging a source", and trying to crack a salted password hash on their behalf so they can say "Here's the password, use this to get into this classified system"?
  - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
    That's not what he's accused of doing. The password would not have given Manning access to additional information - just a way to cover her tracks. Whether Assange even tried to crack the password is just speculation, though.

duxup 7y ago

The actual charges hinge (at this point) on Assange supposedly helping someone to bypass some security to obtain that information. I don't think they were successful (legally that likely doesn't matter), and we'll how much actually counts as "help". So with your analogy you obtain information release it, and then help someone try to hack a computer to access more .... that's where we are at this point. It's a difference. Generally journalists don't help their sources hack into anything. I suspect if you did China would be happy to take you if they could extradite you.

bb88 7y ago

The heart of their indictment [1] is the conspiracy charge. Basically if you conspire to access a computer system, especially one owned by the US Military and containing classified information, they will come after you. 1: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1165566...

ScottFree 7y ago

> Should I be subject to Chinese law? Only if China can exert it's influence in the US. And it can, to a certain extent. It's not unheard of for China to demand that a citizen return home by threatening legal action against his or her family. If China had the same influence over the US as the US does over most of the European countries, then yes, you would be subject to Chinese law if they care enough to pursue it. Laws aren't magic. They're enforced by power. If any country has the power to enforce their own laws in foreign countries, they'll do it if it's important enough to them. In this case, the upside is definitely big enough. I'd be more worried and angry if I were a citizen of a European country. This isn't the first time this decade the US has violated the sovereignty of a European country.

baby 7y ago

A lot of Americans think he is the reason Trump got elected.