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The idea of this law is really interesting to me. Assange is being charged under the US 1917 Espionage Act. How can the US reasonably charge him with espionag

The idea of this law is really interesting to me. Assange is being charged under the US 1917 Espionage Act. How can the US reasonably charge him with espionage? Has Assange ever even been to the US? If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret, and force their international extradition, how would we feel about a foreign government doing the same to one of our citizens? For instance, if Australia were to coerce the UK to arrest and extradite the publisher of the New York Times for prosecution under their laws for printing a story they didn't like for some reason.

primroot 6y ago
I think this is tangential "International Criminal Court officials sanctioned by US" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54003527 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54003527 .
nickff 6y ago
My understanding is that Assange is alleged to have conspired with people in the USA to release classified information. One might compare it to collaborating with someone in the US to commit fraud (or perpetrating the fraud via the internet); being outside the country does not make you immune from prosecution.
- ugopapa 6y ago
  Or one may compare it with the way journalists collaborate with sources. In fact, it has been discussed in the hearing how Assange behavior is exactly what journalists do to get access to privileged information.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Collaborating with a source is different than assisting a source to obstruct a law enforcement investigation of a computer security breach.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Keeping your sources anonymous is exactly obstructive to investigations, thats the point.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        In the legal sense of "obstruction" (which is narrower than the colloquial sense) it's different. The law makes a distinction between refusing to help law enforcement, and actively hindering or deceiving law enforcement. It's not a crime to refuse to provide helpful information to law enforcement. The government can serve you with a subpoena for that information, but that's a civil process. While you can be held in civil contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, it's not a crime, and there are lots of circumstances under which people are "privileged" from having to comply with such subpoenas. (Lawyer-client, doctor-patient, between spouses, etc.) Journalists are generally held to be protected by a similar privilege. Those privileges don't protect you from actively assisting in a cover-up or concealment of evidence of a crime, which is itself a crime. A lawyer doesn't have to tell a prosecutor where to find relevant evidence, but he can't help his client hide that evidence in the first place.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      It actually isn’t, at least how it has been determined in case law. Dan Ellsberg, famed leaker of the Pentagon Papers, testified about this just a few days ago in the Assange extradition hearing. Whistleblowing isn’t stealing or the illegal revelation of secrets. You have to actually prove it’s not whistleblowing for it to be possible to consider it theft. That’s why the US government rushed to add last minute new indictments against Assange for violating the Espionage Act by putting US interests in harm’s way - they knew their case in terms of possession, theft or publishing was complete b.s.
rayiner 6y ago
> If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret He’s not being charged with espionage for “the mere publication” of secrets. He’s being charged with actively assisting a leaker in bypassing security systems: illegal conduct that took place in the US. The attempt to gussy this up overlooks how Assange, if he did what he’s accused of doing, clearly crossed the line. The rules in the US are already very liberal here. If you’re really just publishing materials you got from a leaker, you’re protected. Going even further and saying someone should be protected even when they actively assist a leaker in obtaining materials illegally is a huge step further.
- gpm 6y ago
  > If you’re really just publishing materials you got from a leaker, you’re protected. My understanding is that they (the US government) have actually argued the opposite during the hearings.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    They might be arguing the opposite, but my understanding is that he gave some tips for how to protect Manning's safety and maybe encouraged getting more documents if they were so inclined. That's something any journalist might do in the course of normal human behavior and legitimately so. All these documents turned out to reveal war crimes. The state shouldn't be able to hide behind these flimsy secrecy claims when they are murdering people.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Please read the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/downl... Assange was doing far more than giving a few tips and encouragement.
      - tehjoker 6y ago
        Which points do you find most troubling? It's a very long document and the beginning is filled with flim flam. It says he tried to crack a hash and didn't succeed and therefore didn't even give Manning anything useful. While cracking and giving info back could be problematic, getting info and cracking it is certainly not. In any case, it certainly does not rise to this level of indictment.
kodah 6y ago
The US has fought some interesting cases that have extended US law outside of the United States and cases that allow foreign nationals to use US law outside of the United States. A good example of the latter is when Iraqi citizens were able to sue Blackwater in a US court or where asylum seekers were able to sue governments and cartel members in a US court. The way I see it, as a largely uneducated-about-the-formalities-of-law citizen, is that this exemplifies the need for a world court who has proper interests and jurisdiction to hold fair trials for international matters.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  The International Court of Justice which the US not only refuses to acknowledge but actively works against? Maybe when China pulls a US citizen out of an embassy something will happen, although I suspect not.
plandis 6y ago
Assange is alleged to have sought classified material from the US, and for aiding and abetting Manning in obtaining classified material. This would be like is Australia asked the UK to extradite someone who recruited Australians to rob a bank and then materially helped said Australians actually rob the aforementioned bank.
- eyko 6y ago
  Nation states do not have a right to privacy. Robbing a bank is not equivalent to acquiring state secrets (especially those involving illegal activity). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Why do people say ‘nation states’ when they mean countries? Neither the UK nor the US are ‘nation states’. They’re both examples I would give of things that are not nation states in fact.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Because Scotland is a country, and its part of the UK
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? ‘Country’ is an informal term. ‘Nation state’ is weirdly specific and doesn’t even apply!
        filoleg 6y ago
        >Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? What would you use to refer to UK then? Because if Scotland is a country, and Scotland is a part of UK, that feels kinda weird to call an entity composed of multiple countries a country.
_fizz_buzz_ 6y ago
> Has Assange ever even been to the US? That is pretty much irrelevant. You can easily break a law of a country without ever going there e.g. paying an assassin, selling weapons/drugs, stealing credit card information, breaking into a server to steal sensitive information, etc.
- thefucnjosh 6y ago
  The Hong-Kong protests started after a murderer chopped up his girlfriend and flew to Hong-Kong for safety. Hong-Kong is part of China. Borders do matter, I have no idea what world you live in where ordering something as extreme as an assassination isn't done more safely with a border between you and the person you're assasinating. All that being said...that's NOT what Assange did, Assange is being tried for upholding the law. The U.S. was illegally torturing people and murdering civilians, wikileaks leaked it, wikileaks did so legally, now the U.S. is trying to drum-up a technicality that doesn't exist from a case that happened 7 years ago. A case they waited to try him for for 7 years, while denying him counsel and spying on his counsel.
moomin 6y ago
I’ve said this before, but I think people focus on the wrong thing with the Assange case. They 100% can do this, because the U.K. signed a treaty that let them do so without _even_ getting reciprocal rights. I mean, congratulations to the US negotiators but the UK 100% should not have agreed to it.

primroot 6y ago

I think this is tangential "International Criminal Court officials sanctioned by US" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54003527 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54003527 .

nickff 6y ago

My understanding is that Assange is alleged to have conspired with people in the USA to release classified information. One might compare it to collaborating with someone in the US to commit fraud (or perpetrating the fraud via the internet); being outside the country does not make you immune from prosecution.

ugopapa 6y ago
Or one may compare it with the way journalists collaborate with sources. In fact, it has been discussed in the hearing how Assange behavior is exactly what journalists do to get access to privileged information.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Collaborating with a source is different than assisting a source to obstruct a law enforcement investigation of a computer security breach.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Keeping your sources anonymous is exactly obstructive to investigations, thats the point.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      In the legal sense of "obstruction" (which is narrower than the colloquial sense) it's different. The law makes a distinction between refusing to help law enforcement, and actively hindering or deceiving law enforcement. It's not a crime to refuse to provide helpful information to law enforcement. The government can serve you with a subpoena for that information, but that's a civil process. While you can be held in civil contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, it's not a crime, and there are lots of circumstances under which people are "privileged" from having to comply with such subpoenas. (Lawyer-client, doctor-patient, between spouses, etc.) Journalists are generally held to be protected by a similar privilege. Those privileges don't protect you from actively assisting in a cover-up or concealment of evidence of a crime, which is itself a crime. A lawyer doesn't have to tell a prosecutor where to find relevant evidence, but he can't help his client hide that evidence in the first place.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    It actually isn’t, at least how it has been determined in case law. Dan Ellsberg, famed leaker of the Pentagon Papers, testified about this just a few days ago in the Assange extradition hearing. Whistleblowing isn’t stealing or the illegal revelation of secrets. You have to actually prove it’s not whistleblowing for it to be possible to consider it theft. That’s why the US government rushed to add last minute new indictments against Assange for violating the Espionage Act by putting US interests in harm’s way - they knew their case in terms of possession, theft or publishing was complete b.s.

rayiner 6y ago

> If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret He’s not being charged with espionage for “the mere publication” of secrets. He’s being charged with actively assisting a leaker in bypassing security systems: illegal conduct that took place in the US. The attempt to gussy this up overlooks how Assange, if he did what he’s accused of doing, clearly crossed the line. The rules in the US are already very liberal here. If you’re really just publishing materials you got from a leaker, you’re protected. Going even further and saying someone should be protected even when they actively assist a leaker in obtaining materials illegally is a huge step further.

gpm 6y ago
> If you’re really just publishing materials you got from a leaker, you’re protected. My understanding is that they (the US government) have actually argued the opposite during the hearings.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  They might be arguing the opposite, but my understanding is that he gave some tips for how to protect Manning's safety and maybe encouraged getting more documents if they were so inclined. That's something any journalist might do in the course of normal human behavior and legitimately so. All these documents turned out to reveal war crimes. The state shouldn't be able to hide behind these flimsy secrecy claims when they are murdering people.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Please read the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/downl... Assange was doing far more than giving a few tips and encouragement.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      Which points do you find most troubling? It's a very long document and the beginning is filled with flim flam. It says he tried to crack a hash and didn't succeed and therefore didn't even give Manning anything useful. While cracking and giving info back could be problematic, getting info and cracking it is certainly not. In any case, it certainly does not rise to this level of indictment.

kodah 6y ago

The US has fought some interesting cases that have extended US law outside of the United States and cases that allow foreign nationals to use US law outside of the United States. A good example of the latter is when Iraqi citizens were able to sue Blackwater in a US court or where asylum seekers were able to sue governments and cartel members in a US court. The way I see it, as a largely uneducated-about-the-formalities-of-law citizen, is that this exemplifies the need for a world court who has proper interests and jurisdiction to hold fair trials for international matters.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AniseAbyss 6y ago
The International Court of Justice which the US not only refuses to acknowledge but actively works against? Maybe when China pulls a US citizen out of an embassy something will happen, although I suspect not.

plandis 6y ago

Assange is alleged to have sought classified material from the US, and for aiding and abetting Manning in obtaining classified material. This would be like is Australia asked the UK to extradite someone who recruited Australians to rob a bank and then materially helped said Australians actually rob the aforementioned bank.

eyko 6y ago
Nation states do not have a right to privacy. Robbing a bank is not equivalent to acquiring state secrets (especially those involving illegal activity). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Why do people say ‘nation states’ when they mean countries? Neither the UK nor the US are ‘nation states’. They’re both examples I would give of things that are not nation states in fact.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Because Scotland is a country, and its part of the UK
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? ‘Country’ is an informal term. ‘Nation state’ is weirdly specific and doesn’t even apply!
      - filoleg 6y ago
        >Doesn’t this just emphasise that the UK is not a nation state? What would you use to refer to UK then? Because if Scotland is a country, and Scotland is a part of UK, that feels kinda weird to call an entity composed of multiple countries a country.

_fizz_buzz_ 6y ago

> Has Assange ever even been to the US? That is pretty much irrelevant. You can easily break a law of a country without ever going there e.g. paying an assassin, selling weapons/drugs, stealing credit card information, breaking into a server to steal sensitive information, etc.

thefucnjosh 6y ago
The Hong-Kong protests started after a murderer chopped up his girlfriend and flew to Hong-Kong for safety. Hong-Kong is part of China. Borders do matter, I have no idea what world you live in where ordering something as extreme as an assassination isn't done more safely with a border between you and the person you're assasinating. All that being said...that's NOT what Assange did, Assange is being tried for upholding the law. The U.S. was illegally torturing people and murdering civilians, wikileaks leaked it, wikileaks did so legally, now the U.S. is trying to drum-up a technicality that doesn't exist from a case that happened 7 years ago. A case they waited to try him for for 7 years, while denying him counsel and spying on his counsel.

moomin 6y ago

I’ve said this before, but I think people focus on the wrong thing with the Assange case. They 100% can do this, because the U.K. signed a treaty that let them do so without _even_ getting reciprocal rights. I mean, congratulations to the US negotiators but the UK 100% should not have agreed to it.