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Tech journalists troubled by Assange computer intrusion charge

205 points by howard941 7y ago

duxup 7y ago
The including of the espionage act is a reasonable concern. The question about helping someone hack the laptop in question (even if not successful) was a clear crossing of a boundary that I would expect most journalists would not cross.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  So, did you know that in the US you can face years in prison for just telling someone, "I can't help you commit check fraud, but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it"? Do you agree with this practice?
  - rglover 7y ago
    I'd be curious to see the law in question, but yes, because you're ultimately still aiding someone to commit fraud (however indirectly).
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
      I remember an article of a woman getting around seven years for this exact thing, but I wasn't able to find it, you'll just have to take my post with a grain of salt even though I vouch for it. I think it is an extremely slippery slope to prosecute people for providing public information about how to find public resources to do something already publicly known. That means that you could go to jail for merely suggesting for someone that it's possible for them to buy drugs online via a dark net market-- something I am indirectly doing now just by having this conversation. Or for telling them to google _____ to know how to commit suicide painlessly. Where do we draw the line? Are we sure someone won't come along and move it further down later on?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - rglover 7y ago
        That's the point of due process: to make a conscious judgment about intent based on evidence. In your case, any intelligent person—short of corruption—would realize you were stating an example, not encouraging me to commit a crime. Assange broke the law—calling him a journalist is a farce and a tactic—and has to deal with the consequences. Letting him get away with it sets a precedent for interpreting the law in any way we want, effectively rendering laws useless (and creating the exact problem you've described here). Simply put: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOtyWTRZ_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOtyWTRZ_g
        nkurz 7y ago
        Why do you feel that it strengthens your argument to say "calling him a journalist is a farce"? Clearly, lots of people consider him a journalist. He's even won several prizes for being a journalist. Here's one from 2011: "Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has won the 2011 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism. The annual prize is awarded to a journalist "whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel', as Martha Gellhorn called it". https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/02/julian-assange-martha-gelhorn-prize https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/02/julian-assange... In the absence of a clear legal definition of "journalist" in the US, it seems entirely reasonable to call someone who wins prizes for journalism a journalist. Why do you disagree, and why should your opinion be weighted more strongly than those who disagree with you? I agree, however, that calling him a "journalist" is a tactic. The goal is imply that because he's a journalist, he should not be prosecuted for breaking the law. It's a strange tactic, though, since as far as I know there are no exceptions for journalists to break US federal laws. Anyway, I'd argue that calling him "not a journalist" is a tactic as well. Why not simplify to your stronger point of "Assange broke the law ... and has to deal with the consequences"? Do you feel that if he was a "proper journalist" he should be treated differently? (Personally, I think trying to enforce US law on foreign nationals who have never set foot in your country is a terrible precedent. I believe that prosecuting him is selective-enforcement, intended to punish him for releasing true but embarrassing information about US government misdeeds, and to dissuade others who might be tempted to follow his example. While he likely broke the laws that he is charged with, I think journalists worldwide are right to be afraid of the change in policy that this implies.)
  - brownbat 7y ago
    It's a little more complex than that in practice. Accessory liability generally requires you to know that someone is going to commit a crime, and know that your action will help them. Juries can make bad decisions in particular cases of course, but if I were the defense I would have a field day constantly repeating the "I can't help you" quote. The other side would try to say that was just hand waving or insincere, and the jury would have to decide between those two alternatives based on all the facts of the case. (This becomes a question of fact because particular facts matter. If the Godfather leans in and says the line you gave, for instance, to one of his loyal henchmen, the law should be able to punish him.)
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      > (This becomes a question of fact because particular facts matter. If the Godfather leans in and says the line you gave, for instance, to one of his loyal henchmen, the law should be able to punish him.) That pretty much means that by calling someone a "godfather" I can prosecute them for things that normally wouldn't be a crime. What if I call someone a "terrorist," or a government a "regime"?
      - mindslight 7y ago
        > What if I call someone a "terrorist," or a government a "regime"? Apparently you can push a lot of people into believing a prosecution is not purely political.
        reallydude 7y ago
        Historically, that has been the modus operandi since, at least, the Truman Doctrine.
      - leftyted 7y ago
        No one said said "calls" until your post... I think the point is well made - the jury has to decide what "I can't help you" means, and it means different things depending on who says it. This is the nature of human communication and we can't escape from it.
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    How about if you're talking to someone fuming about a local politician and he's talking about making an explosive and you say "I can't help you make a bomb but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it" If the person goes and then tries it, yes, I agree you share in the responsibility for their actions. It was reasonable for you to believe the intent was serious and you provided essential guidance to making it a reality. There's that word "just" again. "just telling someone" adds deceptive misdirection. The context of who you tell and how and why are all important.
    - threatofrain 7y ago
      > but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it. > ...and you provided essential guidance to making it a reality. That's called essential guidance? Man, I guess I could be an educator and mentor, providing essential guidance on software. I guess people are serious when they say software is Google-fu.
      - Krasnol 7y ago
        Considering how the internet is full of questions that could be solved by googling them, you could make the argument that it's essential. It becomes even more essential if you provide them with the proper search terms that would give them better results. Interpreting what "better search terms" is, is something a good lawyer should be able to manage.
    - fwip 7y ago
      It depends a lot on what's in that blank. If you say "idk, maybe Google 'how to make a bomb,'" then that's not essential guidance. If you say "Google for [list of specific key ingredients]," that's a bit different.
    - sschueller 7y ago
      So technically the website "let me Google that for you" could also be liable?
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    > So, did you know that in the US you can face years in prison for just telling someone, "I can't help you commit check fraud, but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it"? To the extent that would be illegal, it would only be illegal because the other person was first asking how to commit a crime. If you walked up to a random person and told them "Google 'How to commit check fraud'" then you'd be 100% in the clear.
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
      Alright, but you know that wasn't what my post was talking about.
- sjeohp 7y ago
  Most journalists are state lackeys so that doesn't say much. A sane person should recognize the difference between hacking a govt computer for personal gain and hacking in the public interest before locking someone up for life.
  - geekone 7y ago
    >Most journalists are state lackeys so that doesn't say much. Source?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - sjeohp 7y ago
      Not sure what you are hoping for beyond the self-evident unwillingness of most journalists to challenge state enthusiasm for the Foreign Intervention of the Month.
      - stevenjohns 7y ago
        This has less to do with most journalists consciously doing it and more to do with people just riding the wave of their biases and their editor's biases. The reality is that most journalists are not proficient in the content they try to cover, and for the select "elite" that are proficient and considered to be "experts", they almost always come with some sort of insanely strong bias that made them proficient to start off with. There's almost a revolving door between "expert" journalists and think tanks/pressure groups. I see this heavily with Middle Eastern coverage. It's basically an all-out shitfight of the most bigoted, racist and sectarian people war mongering through fear, dishonestly and in some cases outright lies. In some cases this has had tragic consequences - things like ISIS' adventure through Iraq could have almost certainly been avoided. Sometimes the dog whistling moves from just dog whistling and we see writers that have written for publications like The Boston Globe outright tweeting that they wish for the suffering of Syrian children - verbatim - and then deleting the tweets after realising they're on a public platform.
    - 7y ago
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  While I can understand that, the root issue is that this “hacking” is in fact a public service—whistleblowing. There was much more support for Assange, even from the political establishment, before he published the emails in the lead up to the election. I can’t even be mad at that because it showed what a corrupt organization the DNC was at the time (and probably still is, although there is the Unity coalition now). So I would argue he embarrassed both the military industrial complex AND the DNC to get him where he is now. It’s also much harder to see publishing internal documents of a campaign/political party as a public service or whistleblowing, though I think the case for “russian interference” is entirely overblown compared to, say, blatant interference via the incestuous political/media blob.
  - freddie_mercury 7y ago
    > While I can understand that, the root issue is that this “hacking” is in fact a public service—whistleblowing. How do you establish that a given act of hacking is or is not a public service? Especially in cases where there isn't a bright line like "someone broke law XYZ". It seems like going to court & having a jury decide that is not obviously the wrong solution. So even if one supports your position, it seems like the issue would still end up in court with a jury deciding whether someone spends years in jail or goes free.
    - justinclift 7y ago
      > It seems like going to court & having a jury decide that is not obviously the wrong solution. If the court process was reasonably expected to be impartial and fair, then you'd have a point. That's very much not the case in this instance. :(
    - pytester 7y ago
      >How do you establish that a given act of hacking is or is not a public service? If you hack and then publish embarrassing material to the whole world it's a public service. If you hack non-embarrassing operationally sensitive material and then leak it selectively to foreign governments then it's espionage. There's some fuzziness but it's not a bright line to cross and Julian Assange is very, very far away from it. The fact that the murders that were uncovered are still going unprosecuted adds considerable weight to the idea that it was a public service. If Assange had done the exact same thing to Russia the idea that it was espionage would be justifiably mocked. It's not mocked because nationalism is a potent drug, essentially (here, it's not like Russians aren't looking at this and shaking their heads).
- pytester 7y ago
  >The question about helping someone hack the laptop in question (even if not successful) was a clear crossing of a boundary that I would expect most journalists would not cross. It seems fairly analogous to the famous 1973 burglary of FBI offices that uncovered J Edgar Hoover's blanked surveillance of civil rights movements and his attempt to coerce Luther King into committing suicide: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/fbi-office-break-in-1971-come-forward-documents https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/fbi-office-bre... Retrospectively, it's easy now to call these people heroes who uncovered a rather evil conspiracy.
- belorn 7y ago
  A pity he is not in Sweden. Just four months ago a number of journalists from a tech news site accessed an unprotected medical server as part of verifying the claim that it was indeed unprotected. 2.7 million patient calls to Swedish healthcare hotline left unprotected online (https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/02/18/2-7-million-patient-calls-to-swedish-healthcare-hotline-left-unprotected-online/ https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/02/18/2-7-million-patient-cal...). The journalists downloaded one audio file during verification. The company filed a police complaint and claimed the journalists unlawfully accessed a computer without authorization, conspired to access a computer without authorization, and access with the intention to disclose patient confidential information (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/medhelp-anmaler-computer-sweden https://www.svt.se/nyheter/medhelp-anmaler-computer-sweden). I strongly doubt it will go anywhere or any of the journalists will see a day in prison.
  - efdee 7y ago
    I don't think Sweden would extend the same courtesy to Assange.
    - duxup 7y ago
      The law in Sweden is pretty clear, they don't extradite for espionage / political crimes.
      - efdee 7y ago
        You'd be surprised how easily such things change.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    Much different than attempting to hack a password protected computer to get confidential government data and use it for undisclosed purposes.
    - hauk66 7y ago
      >undisclosed purposes When your business card reads "wikileaks" I think the parties involved have a decent idea of what they where doing. I can see how the attempt might be viewed as a hostile act towards the Americans as a "military entity" but i also strongly belive that Wikileaks has done amazing work with their dumps. If he wants to try and brute a few encryptions to support wikileaks i dont really mind quite frankly. The amount of shit we (europeans++) take from the American tech/some enterprises on behalf of the us goverment i legitimatly feel that the citisens that have been illegal spied on by a foreign goverment that could not possibly care less about protecting their fundemental privacy rights, lose their privilige to complain when citizens of said foreign nations with "nobel" causes tries to fuck them back. Im sorry but with the revelations of the past decade my strong support of the status quo in regards to American dominance has withered some. There is a point where i just want to tell the American military machine to "ta deg en bolle" (Norwegian for its time to shut the fuck up and deal with it) /end of anti-America rant
- jessaustin 7y ago
  What laptop? I thought the issue was credentials for some sort of online database of war crime videos? Manning already had personal credentials, but thought that if the videos were accessed with other credentials the source of the leaks would be less obvious.
harry8 7y ago
Is there anyone who believes the various branches of the military, nsa, cia etc. are subject to the same law interpreted the same way and would face prosecution for doing exactly what is accused here? I really don't and that's the thing that bothers me the most. Giving up equality before the law is huge. It's really quite revolutionary, no? Clapper is clearly as guilty as sin by his own admission but the law doesn't apply to him at all. Without talking about what is right and wrong morally, that loss of what is and isn't legal and has consequence to be decided on court no matter who you are is deeply and profoundly worrying to me. A novel interpretation and prosecution for one man (right or wrong) while not pursuing a very well trodden prisecution path for another. It's no light thing.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > Is there anyone who believes the various branches of the military The point of the rule of law is one doesn’t have to. This comment is orthogonal to the article.
  - harry8 7y ago
    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The point is the rule of law is worth standing up for when it is threatened, surely. The rule of law isn't gravity, it doesn't continue to exist if nobody cares. Without it, life looks quite different.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Is your position that because the US engages in espionage that we can't prosecute foreign spies? (otherwise we should hold our own spy agencies guilty of espionage?)
  - harry8 7y ago
    The point is someone doing exactly what has been accused here, exactly, but to leak stories in support of whoever is in charge of various military branches. Would that same law apply for exactly the same thing? I strongly doubt it. "Unnamed official sources" Perjury is not exactly a novel prosecution to run, nor would be something setting precedent. This (right or wrong) sets precedent in it's interpretation and effect and will create case law either way it goes. Do you see the point I'm making? I can't see prosecution hesitating for a second to prosecute someone like Assange for perjury if there was even a hint of a case for it. That doesn't make Assange right and Clapper wrong or indeed say anything at all about that. It's just a worrying thing.
swanny160 7y ago
Was Assange in the US at the time of the hacking? What has bothered me most is that he is a non-citizen, a journalist, being dragged across the world to face US Law
- wavefunction 7y ago
  Your issue lies with international extradition treaties it seems.
  - krferriter 7y ago
    Extradition is usually done when someone commits a crime in one country, then flees to another country, and the first country requests that the second country send them back to the first country so they can be tried, right? Assange didn't break any laws inside the US. Can the US request extradition of anyone who breaks US law, even if they didn't break it while in the US? That seems pretty dangerous, and if I were a legislator in another country I would be very wary of ceding international prosecution power to the US. If Alice in Canada, a Canadian citizen and permanent resident, tells Bob in the US that thepiratebay lets them download copyrighted content, can the US request extradition of Alice from Canada and charge them with US crimes?
    - swanny160 7y ago
      That is exactly my concern. Basically everyone in the world can be subject to US Law, set by a government they didn't vote for.
      - drenvuk 7y ago
        Extradition situations are typically run like so: 0. Country A has an extradition treaty with country B. 1. Break a law in Country A that is also a law in Country B but the effects of breaking that law happen in country B. 2. Courts in Country A decide whether the extradition treaty applies. 3. If it's a citizen that breaks the law there are a myriad of ways for Country A to say no. If It's a non-citizen then they get exported with a quickness, usually. Countries like Iceland usually say no to the US, see: Bobby Fischer. Other countries vary quite a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but most countries only extradite their own citizens (sometimes or never) in the case where laws are broken in both countries and there's a ton of political pressure. It's not completely willy nilly though it's worse than I'd like.
OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y ago
Assange is in jail for the sole reason he embarrassed the American military industrial entertainment complex.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  He's also a useful tool to undermine journalism and a free and independent press. Even more effective than the blind defense of Khashoggi's murders and the "enemy of the people" language.
  - tictoc 7y ago
    How is he a tool for undermining the proliferation of facts? Just because facts come from a sexual predator doesn't make them any less true. If someone isn't willing to put in the effort to validate truth, then they can't handle it.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      I think they meant a tool for the government (in the sense that they can use him as an example to pass laws limiting press freedom or to punish him to dissuade others). Also the sexual crimes related to Assange (regardless of whether you think they're true or not) are allegations.
- techntoke 7y ago
  Really, and you have the proof of this? I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm led to believe that both Assange and WikiLeaks are not innocent even if they did some good.
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    People do bad things all the time and aren't charged. Cases are dropped, etc.
- kombucha11 7y ago
  Wasnt the biggest issue is that he solicited and encouraged new material beyond that of a journalist?
ImGunter 7y ago
As they should be it's concering that reporting the truth can get you arrested and have this much bullshit be brought up against you the government always gets bad when anything negative comes out about them it's disgusting, imo this is more of a freedom of the press issue rather than an espionage issue.
campuscodi 7y ago
I'm a tech journalist and I'm not troubled at all.
- zrth 7y ago
  i'm a dog on the internet and i am mostly indifferent

205 points by howard941 7y ago

The including of the espionage act is a reasonable concern. The question about helping someone hack the laptop in question (even if not successful) was a clear crossing of a boundary that I would expect most journalists would not cross.

soulofmischief 7y ago
So, did you know that in the US you can face years in prison for just telling someone, "I can't help you commit check fraud, but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it"? Do you agree with this practice?
- rglover 7y ago
  I'd be curious to see the law in question, but yes, because you're ultimately still aiding someone to commit fraud (however indirectly).
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    I remember an article of a woman getting around seven years for this exact thing, but I wasn't able to find it, you'll just have to take my post with a grain of salt even though I vouch for it. I think it is an extremely slippery slope to prosecute people for providing public information about how to find public resources to do something already publicly known. That means that you could go to jail for merely suggesting for someone that it's possible for them to buy drugs online via a dark net market-- something I am indirectly doing now just by having this conversation. Or for telling them to google _____ to know how to commit suicide painlessly. Where do we draw the line? Are we sure someone won't come along and move it further down later on?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - rglover 7y ago
      That's the point of due process: to make a conscious judgment about intent based on evidence. In your case, any intelligent person—short of corruption—would realize you were stating an example, not encouraging me to commit a crime. Assange broke the law—calling him a journalist is a farce and a tactic—and has to deal with the consequences. Letting him get away with it sets a precedent for interpreting the law in any way we want, effectively rendering laws useless (and creating the exact problem you've described here). Simply put: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOtyWTRZ_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOtyWTRZ_g
      - nkurz 7y ago
        Why do you feel that it strengthens your argument to say "calling him a journalist is a farce"? Clearly, lots of people consider him a journalist. He's even won several prizes for being a journalist. Here's one from 2011: "Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has won the 2011 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism. The annual prize is awarded to a journalist "whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel', as Martha Gellhorn called it". https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/02/julian-assange-martha-gelhorn-prize https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/02/julian-assange... In the absence of a clear legal definition of "journalist" in the US, it seems entirely reasonable to call someone who wins prizes for journalism a journalist. Why do you disagree, and why should your opinion be weighted more strongly than those who disagree with you? I agree, however, that calling him a "journalist" is a tactic. The goal is imply that because he's a journalist, he should not be prosecuted for breaking the law. It's a strange tactic, though, since as far as I know there are no exceptions for journalists to break US federal laws. Anyway, I'd argue that calling him "not a journalist" is a tactic as well. Why not simplify to your stronger point of "Assange broke the law ... and has to deal with the consequences"? Do you feel that if he was a "proper journalist" he should be treated differently? (Personally, I think trying to enforce US law on foreign nationals who have never set foot in your country is a terrible precedent. I believe that prosecuting him is selective-enforcement, intended to punish him for releasing true but embarrassing information about US government misdeeds, and to dissuade others who might be tempted to follow his example. While he likely broke the laws that he is charged with, I think journalists worldwide are right to be afraid of the change in policy that this implies.)
- brownbat 7y ago
  It's a little more complex than that in practice. Accessory liability generally requires you to know that someone is going to commit a crime, and know that your action will help them. Juries can make bad decisions in particular cases of course, but if I were the defense I would have a field day constantly repeating the "I can't help you" quote. The other side would try to say that was just hand waving or insincere, and the jury would have to decide between those two alternatives based on all the facts of the case. (This becomes a question of fact because particular facts matter. If the Godfather leans in and says the line you gave, for instance, to one of his loyal henchmen, the law should be able to punish him.)
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    > (This becomes a question of fact because particular facts matter. If the Godfather leans in and says the line you gave, for instance, to one of his loyal henchmen, the law should be able to punish him.) That pretty much means that by calling someone a "godfather" I can prosecute them for things that normally wouldn't be a crime. What if I call someone a "terrorist," or a government a "regime"?
    - mindslight 7y ago
      > What if I call someone a "terrorist," or a government a "regime"? Apparently you can push a lot of people into believing a prosecution is not purely political.
      - reallydude 7y ago
        Historically, that has been the modus operandi since, at least, the Truman Doctrine.
    - leftyted 7y ago
      No one said said "calls" until your post... I think the point is well made - the jury has to decide what "I can't help you" means, and it means different things depending on who says it. This is the nature of human communication and we can't escape from it.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  How about if you're talking to someone fuming about a local politician and he's talking about making an explosive and you say "I can't help you make a bomb but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it" If the person goes and then tries it, yes, I agree you share in the responsibility for their actions. It was reasonable for you to believe the intent was serious and you provided essential guidance to making it a reality. There's that word "just" again. "just telling someone" adds deceptive misdirection. The context of who you tell and how and why are all important.
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    > but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it. > ...and you provided essential guidance to making it a reality. That's called essential guidance? Man, I guess I could be an educator and mentor, providing essential guidance on software. I guess people are serious when they say software is Google-fu.
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      Considering how the internet is full of questions that could be solved by googling them, you could make the argument that it's essential. It becomes even more essential if you provide them with the proper search terms that would give them better results. Interpreting what "better search terms" is, is something a good lawyer should be able to manage.
  - fwip 7y ago
    It depends a lot on what's in that blank. If you say "idk, maybe Google 'how to make a bomb,'" then that's not essential guidance. If you say "Google for [list of specific key ingredients]," that's a bit different.
  - sschueller 7y ago
    So technically the website "let me Google that for you" could also be liable?
- Alex3917 7y ago
  > So, did you know that in the US you can face years in prison for just telling someone, "I can't help you commit check fraud, but Google _____ if you're interested in learning how others do it"? To the extent that would be illegal, it would only be illegal because the other person was first asking how to commit a crime. If you walked up to a random person and told them "Google 'How to commit check fraud'" then you'd be 100% in the clear.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    Alright, but you know that wasn't what my post was talking about.
sjeohp 7y ago
Most journalists are state lackeys so that doesn't say much. A sane person should recognize the difference between hacking a govt computer for personal gain and hacking in the public interest before locking someone up for life.
- geekone 7y ago
  >Most journalists are state lackeys so that doesn't say much. Source?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sjeohp 7y ago
    Not sure what you are hoping for beyond the self-evident unwillingness of most journalists to challenge state enthusiasm for the Foreign Intervention of the Month.
    - stevenjohns 7y ago
      This has less to do with most journalists consciously doing it and more to do with people just riding the wave of their biases and their editor's biases. The reality is that most journalists are not proficient in the content they try to cover, and for the select "elite" that are proficient and considered to be "experts", they almost always come with some sort of insanely strong bias that made them proficient to start off with. There's almost a revolving door between "expert" journalists and think tanks/pressure groups. I see this heavily with Middle Eastern coverage. It's basically an all-out shitfight of the most bigoted, racist and sectarian people war mongering through fear, dishonestly and in some cases outright lies. In some cases this has had tragic consequences - things like ISIS' adventure through Iraq could have almost certainly been avoided. Sometimes the dog whistling moves from just dog whistling and we see writers that have written for publications like The Boston Globe outright tweeting that they wish for the suffering of Syrian children - verbatim - and then deleting the tweets after realising they're on a public platform.
  - 7y ago
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
While I can understand that, the root issue is that this “hacking” is in fact a public service—whistleblowing. There was much more support for Assange, even from the political establishment, before he published the emails in the lead up to the election. I can’t even be mad at that because it showed what a corrupt organization the DNC was at the time (and probably still is, although there is the Unity coalition now). So I would argue he embarrassed both the military industrial complex AND the DNC to get him where he is now. It’s also much harder to see publishing internal documents of a campaign/political party as a public service or whistleblowing, though I think the case for “russian interference” is entirely overblown compared to, say, blatant interference via the incestuous political/media blob.
- freddie_mercury 7y ago
  > While I can understand that, the root issue is that this “hacking” is in fact a public service—whistleblowing. How do you establish that a given act of hacking is or is not a public service? Especially in cases where there isn't a bright line like "someone broke law XYZ". It seems like going to court & having a jury decide that is not obviously the wrong solution. So even if one supports your position, it seems like the issue would still end up in court with a jury deciding whether someone spends years in jail or goes free.
  - justinclift 7y ago
    > It seems like going to court & having a jury decide that is not obviously the wrong solution. If the court process was reasonably expected to be impartial and fair, then you'd have a point. That's very much not the case in this instance. :(
  - pytester 7y ago
    >How do you establish that a given act of hacking is or is not a public service? If you hack and then publish embarrassing material to the whole world it's a public service. If you hack non-embarrassing operationally sensitive material and then leak it selectively to foreign governments then it's espionage. There's some fuzziness but it's not a bright line to cross and Julian Assange is very, very far away from it. The fact that the murders that were uncovered are still going unprosecuted adds considerable weight to the idea that it was a public service. If Assange had done the exact same thing to Russia the idea that it was espionage would be justifiably mocked. It's not mocked because nationalism is a potent drug, essentially (here, it's not like Russians aren't looking at this and shaking their heads).
pytester 7y ago
>The question about helping someone hack the laptop in question (even if not successful) was a clear crossing of a boundary that I would expect most journalists would not cross. It seems fairly analogous to the famous 1973 burglary of FBI offices that uncovered J Edgar Hoover's blanked surveillance of civil rights movements and his attempt to coerce Luther King into committing suicide: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/fbi-office-break-in-1971-come-forward-documents https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/fbi-office-bre... Retrospectively, it's easy now to call these people heroes who uncovered a rather evil conspiracy.
belorn 7y ago
A pity he is not in Sweden. Just four months ago a number of journalists from a tech news site accessed an unprotected medical server as part of verifying the claim that it was indeed unprotected. 2.7 million patient calls to Swedish healthcare hotline left unprotected online (https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/02/18/2-7-million-patient-calls-to-swedish-healthcare-hotline-left-unprotected-online/ https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/02/18/2-7-million-patient-cal...). The journalists downloaded one audio file during verification. The company filed a police complaint and claimed the journalists unlawfully accessed a computer without authorization, conspired to access a computer without authorization, and access with the intention to disclose patient confidential information (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/medhelp-anmaler-computer-sweden https://www.svt.se/nyheter/medhelp-anmaler-computer-sweden). I strongly doubt it will go anywhere or any of the journalists will see a day in prison.
- efdee 7y ago
  I don't think Sweden would extend the same courtesy to Assange.
  - duxup 7y ago
    The law in Sweden is pretty clear, they don't extradite for espionage / political crimes.
    - efdee 7y ago
      You'd be surprised how easily such things change.
- techntoke 7y ago
  Much different than attempting to hack a password protected computer to get confidential government data and use it for undisclosed purposes.
  - hauk66 7y ago
    >undisclosed purposes When your business card reads "wikileaks" I think the parties involved have a decent idea of what they where doing. I can see how the attempt might be viewed as a hostile act towards the Americans as a "military entity" but i also strongly belive that Wikileaks has done amazing work with their dumps. If he wants to try and brute a few encryptions to support wikileaks i dont really mind quite frankly. The amount of shit we (europeans++) take from the American tech/some enterprises on behalf of the us goverment i legitimatly feel that the citisens that have been illegal spied on by a foreign goverment that could not possibly care less about protecting their fundemental privacy rights, lose their privilige to complain when citizens of said foreign nations with "nobel" causes tries to fuck them back. Im sorry but with the revelations of the past decade my strong support of the status quo in regards to American dominance has withered some. There is a point where i just want to tell the American military machine to "ta deg en bolle" (Norwegian for its time to shut the fuck up and deal with it) /end of anti-America rant
jessaustin 7y ago
What laptop? I thought the issue was credentials for some sort of online database of war crime videos? Manning already had personal credentials, but thought that if the videos were accessed with other credentials the source of the leaks would be less obvious.

harry8 7y ago

Is there anyone who believes the various branches of the military, nsa, cia etc. are subject to the same law interpreted the same way and would face prosecution for doing exactly what is accused here? I really don't and that's the thing that bothers me the most. Giving up equality before the law is huge. It's really quite revolutionary, no? Clapper is clearly as guilty as sin by his own admission but the law doesn't apply to him at all. Without talking about what is right and wrong morally, that loss of what is and isn't legal and has consequence to be decided on court no matter who you are is deeply and profoundly worrying to me. A novel interpretation and prosecution for one man (right or wrong) while not pursuing a very well trodden prisecution path for another. It's no light thing.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> Is there anyone who believes the various branches of the military The point of the rule of law is one doesn’t have to. This comment is orthogonal to the article.
- harry8 7y ago
  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The point is the rule of law is worth standing up for when it is threatened, surely. The rule of law isn't gravity, it doesn't continue to exist if nobody cares. Without it, life looks quite different.
colechristensen 7y ago
Is your position that because the US engages in espionage that we can't prosecute foreign spies? (otherwise we should hold our own spy agencies guilty of espionage?)
- harry8 7y ago
  The point is someone doing exactly what has been accused here, exactly, but to leak stories in support of whoever is in charge of various military branches. Would that same law apply for exactly the same thing? I strongly doubt it. "Unnamed official sources" Perjury is not exactly a novel prosecution to run, nor would be something setting precedent. This (right or wrong) sets precedent in it's interpretation and effect and will create case law either way it goes. Do you see the point I'm making? I can't see prosecution hesitating for a second to prosecute someone like Assange for perjury if there was even a hint of a case for it. That doesn't make Assange right and Clapper wrong or indeed say anything at all about that. It's just a worrying thing.

swanny160 7y ago

Was Assange in the US at the time of the hacking? What has bothered me most is that he is a non-citizen, a journalist, being dragged across the world to face US Law

wavefunction 7y ago
Your issue lies with international extradition treaties it seems.
- krferriter 7y ago
  Extradition is usually done when someone commits a crime in one country, then flees to another country, and the first country requests that the second country send them back to the first country so they can be tried, right? Assange didn't break any laws inside the US. Can the US request extradition of anyone who breaks US law, even if they didn't break it while in the US? That seems pretty dangerous, and if I were a legislator in another country I would be very wary of ceding international prosecution power to the US. If Alice in Canada, a Canadian citizen and permanent resident, tells Bob in the US that thepiratebay lets them download copyrighted content, can the US request extradition of Alice from Canada and charge them with US crimes?
  - swanny160 7y ago
    That is exactly my concern. Basically everyone in the world can be subject to US Law, set by a government they didn't vote for.
    - drenvuk 7y ago
      Extradition situations are typically run like so: 0. Country A has an extradition treaty with country B. 1. Break a law in Country A that is also a law in Country B but the effects of breaking that law happen in country B. 2. Courts in Country A decide whether the extradition treaty applies. 3. If it's a citizen that breaks the law there are a myriad of ways for Country A to say no. If It's a non-citizen then they get exported with a quickness, usually. Countries like Iceland usually say no to the US, see: Bobby Fischer. Other countries vary quite a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but most countries only extradite their own citizens (sometimes or never) in the case where laws are broken in both countries and there's a ton of political pressure. It's not completely willy nilly though it's worse than I'd like.

OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y ago

Assange is in jail for the sole reason he embarrassed the American military industrial entertainment complex.

TomMckenny 7y ago
He's also a useful tool to undermine journalism and a free and independent press. Even more effective than the blind defense of Khashoggi's murders and the "enemy of the people" language.
- tictoc 7y ago
  How is he a tool for undermining the proliferation of facts? Just because facts come from a sexual predator doesn't make them any less true. If someone isn't willing to put in the effort to validate truth, then they can't handle it.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    I think they meant a tool for the government (in the sense that they can use him as an example to pass laws limiting press freedom or to punish him to dissuade others). Also the sexual crimes related to Assange (regardless of whether you think they're true or not) are allegations.
techntoke 7y ago
Really, and you have the proof of this? I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm led to believe that both Assange and WikiLeaks are not innocent even if they did some good.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  People do bad things all the time and aren't charged. Cases are dropped, etc.
kombucha11 7y ago
Wasnt the biggest issue is that he solicited and encouraged new material beyond that of a journalist?

ImGunter 7y ago

As they should be it's concering that reporting the truth can get you arrested and have this much bullshit be brought up against you the government always gets bad when anything negative comes out about them it's disgusting, imo this is more of a freedom of the press issue rather than an espionage issue.

campuscodi 7y ago

I'm a tech journalist and I'm not troubled at all.

zrth 7y ago
i'm a dog on the internet and i am mostly indifferent